


Humanity

by Guede



Series: War [2]
Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Betrayal, Bonding, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex, Sieges, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:54:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: In wartime, the real measure of victory lies in how much of the man the soldier manages to hold onto.
Relationships: Arthur Castus/Lancelot, Dagonet (King Arthur 2004)/Original Female Character(s), Galahad/Gawain (King Arthur 2004)
Series: War [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589134
Comments: 69
Kudos: 15





	1. Shock

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LJ in 2005. Set a few years before the movie.

“This is boring.” Admittedly, it was relieving for once to not be worrying about arrows in the back, or Romans trying to cut out their legs from under them before heaving them onto the battlefield, but nevertheless, it was boring. Tracking wasn’t Galahad’s specialty for a good reason, and so he didn’t see what the point was of going along with Tristan. The man knew what he was doing and he usually did it fine without company.

For all Galahad could tell, Tristan had probably forgotten someone else was there. He was off his horse and pawing around the leaves at the base of a tree, whistling tunelessly as he poked the ground. So was his hawk, which occasionally swooped down to check back before soaring upwards again. It was lucky—it could come back when it wanted to, and didn’t have to obey stupid Gawain about tagging along after Tristan like a pathetic little puppy.

They weren’t even in hostile territory. It was rough country and sparse of towns or even villages, but they were well behind Roman lines and no battles were on the horizon, except for the mock kind. Some new unit was being broken in at their garrison and so they got to play around down in the hinterlands, doing drills and hunting and generally loafing about. Arthur had even brought one or two of his precious books along with the intention of catching up on his reading, though the way Lancelot had rolled his eyes at that made it doubtful that Arthur would. “What the fuck am I doing here? I’m staring at squirrel scratches and waiting for you to decide it’s nothing. This is--”

“—I didn’t ask for you to come along.” Tristan got up and leisurely moved forward a few paces before squatting again to look at _more_ leaves. He flipped a hand over his shoulder. “It’s nearly dusk. You should be going in anyway.”

“Oh, yes. Because the trees will eat me if I stay out too late,” Galahad muttered, turning away. If he went back without Tristan, Gawain would turn into a scold for the whole night and then there really wasn’t a point in having free time since it wouldn’t be enjoyable. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

Tristan ignored him.

When they got back, Gawain had better have a good explanation for shoving Galahad out here. The two of them could’ve made a run to the river and found a nice big rock to fuck on or something pleasant like that, but no, Gawain had to be responsible. He couldn’t possibly have that much to do, yet he still managed to find things.

Galahad sighed and looked up. He and Tristan were at the base of a fairly tall, thickly wooded hill. Sometime in the past, Britons had cleared off the top and built a modest fortress, which had subsequently been taken over by the Romans and properly fortified to protect the rare spring that welled up there. The woods had since been allowed to creep upwards and a small village had sprouted about the garrison, but Galahad could still see the tops of the stone walls over the leafy fringe. “Could you hurry—”

The arrow came out of nowhere. In fact, for the first second Galahad thought it’d merely grown out of the tree. But Tristan was spinning up and throwing himself into the saddle of his suddenly-nervy horse, and Galahad’s own charger was whinnying and dancing as his hands yanked up bow and arrow. Then his mind engaged and he clapped his knees into his horse’s sides, wheeling it back and forth to present as small a target as possible. More arrows whipped by his head and thunked into the ground at his horse’s hooves. One struck his gauntlet longways and skittered down its length to fall harmlessly away. Another stung his ear and left hot droplets behind. 

His horse reared and he caught a gleam of something in the trees. Galahad shot and heard a wet thump, which meant flesh and not wood. He hastily got out another arrow and took aim, then let it off. That one sounded as if it’d missed, but Tristan had unloaded five in the same time, and he’d hit all of them. Sometimes he was handy to have around.

Still wasn’t going to do much good; they were cavalry and they needed to get out into the open. Here they were easy targets. Galahad was opening his mouth to say so when Tristan jerked around and whacked the butt of his bow across the flanks of Galahad’s horse, which promptly took off like its tail was afire. 

“Bastard!” Galahad fell heavily onto his horse’ neck and nearly fell, with only a last-moment grab at his saddle to save him. He hauled himself up just time to duck another arrow, only this one was from his fellow knight.

Tristan had hooked his leg over his saddle horn and was shooting behind them. As good as he was, he wasn’t going to be able to keep up that balancing act for very long, so it was a damned lucky thing they weren’t far from a wide clearing. If Galahad remembered right, Arthur and a few other knights should still be there, finishing up practice.

And he was right, but it didn’t help them much. He and Tristan broke from the trees into a blood-splashed field full of _Woads_. Howling blue sons of whores hacking at bodies and raising spears towards the newcomers—Galahad cursed and slammed his heels into his horse. It leaped, clipped some bastard in the skull as it went and came down heavily, impact ripping up through it to jar him. “ _Shit_. Shit, shit, please don’t have a broken—”

But his horse resumed its pace after that stumble. Galahad couldn’t spare the time to give thanks, or even to feel relieved. He rode down another Woad, felt gore splatter up onto the bottoms of his boots, and cut back into the woods.

Fuck. _Fuck_. They weren’t even armored, and the only proper building around for miles was the fort, but the Woads were between Galahad and Tristan and that. And _fuck_ , Arthur was—Galahad hadn’t seen any faces. He tried to remember if he’d recognized anything—swords, strips of cloth—and nearly let himself get knocked out of the saddle by a low-hanging branch. No time to worry about that, no matter how his gut wanted to poison itself.

“We can’t run!” Tristan called to him. The other man shouldered his horse besides Galahad on the narrow path. “Not in the woods. Too thick.”

“Can’t fucking stand either! Too many.” They smashed through some bushes and came out on the banks of a small stream. The hooves of Galahad’s horse skidded on the wet stones and he twisted it back onto the dirt.

Tristan’s horse didn’t miss a step, but that was its downfall: a Woad lunged out of the other side and into the middle of the bank, where she stood with mouth a red gaping scream and pike braced against the ground. The momentum carried Tristan’s horse right onto it; he kicked out of his stirrups and jumped off before his horse fell, but at the last moment his horse gave an agonized twist and hit him, or snagged him for a moment, or did something that threw off his landing. He went down and rolled away from the Woad, who was already crumpling over the arrow Galahad had put between her breasts.

More were coming up behind, and they announced their presence by sending an arrow through the eyes of Galahad’s horse. He scrambled to get off it, dropping his bow, and landed better than Tristan, but then he nearly dislocated his shoulder trying to turn and draw his sword to block the first ax. He made it, barely—it slashed a new scar through his sleeve—and kicked out to get distance, then cleaved the Woad’s skull in two. Another one came up his left and he ducked the man’s wild swing to drive in low and gut him. “Tristan?”

“Your right.”

Galahad looked there and saw a spear, which he parried just in time. He elbowed the bastard in the eye and then slammed his hilt into the Woad’s skull hard enough to feel it pulp through the bone. “That’s very funny—”

“—useful’s better, and it was that.” Tristan had dragged himself up the bank and had grabbed Galahad’s discarded bow. Then he’d apparently used the Woads’ own arrows to kill the rest.

For the moment, anyway. Suddenly the woods weren’t boring, but nerve-wrackingly quiet. There had been more than that seeing to the dead knights in the clearing. “Arthur,” Galahad gasped. “Did you—”

“I don’t think—” Tristan stopped, face oddly white, and took a deep breath “—he wasn’t there. But they were carrying off the bodies.”

“Why would—oh, fuck.” All Galahad could do for a long heartbeat was stare into Tristan’s eyes and see the dread peeking out from behind the man’s composure. Raiding parties let bodies be. Armies took them to mutilate and leave at the edge of fields in order to terrify the other side.

They couldn’t even go on leave without someone trying to kill them. 

A hysterical little giggle crammed Galahad’s throat, and if he’d been with anyone else, he probably would’ve let it out in some form. But it was Tristan and the man never, ever let a chance to throw embarrassments back in Galahad’s face go by, so—and Tristan was pale. Very pale. He also wasn’t standing up.

Galahad wiped at his forehead to give himself something to do. He breathed in, ignored how it made his exhausted lungs hurt, and tried to think. To start with, he wasn’t going to die in some nasty backhanded Woad ambush. Therefore they needed to first get away from here and second get back to the fort. It looked as if the Woads were temporarily too busy to send anyone else after them, so they had a little time.

He knelt down besides his horse’s corpse and feverishly attacked the saddle-straps; good tack was worth almost as much as a stallion out here, and he wasn’t going to leave his for some moron in blue paint who’d only smear it up. Plus he’d need the food and supplies in the saddlebags. “We need to go.”

“I told you to leave,” Tristan snorted, voice far too weak. He made no attempt to drag his feet out of the shallow stream, nor to get at his saddle.

“Yeah, and I should have, but I promised Gawain. What, you want to stay and get taken by the Woads? They don’t kill nice, you know.” The buckles were suddenly slippery as water-snakes and Galahad’s fingers couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t keep up with everything he thought he needed to do—he needed to leave—there was a Woad army—Tristan wasn’t getting up.

Tristan. Damn it, but Galahad was embarrassing himself anyway.

The thought gave him a good slap and knocked his mind in order. He looked at his shaking fingers, almost laughed at how ridiculous it was for him to panic _now_ after so many battles, and just slashed through the straps with his sword. He could fix that.

And now for Tristan. “What?” Galahad snapped, voice thick and raspy.

The other man just stared back, but a casual glance at his hand showed it was white-knuckled and digging into the mud. When Tristan spoke, his voice was shaking ever-so-slightly. “They aren’t going to take me.”

Galahad felt the poison in his stomach braid itself into a whip and lash at his insides. His hand went out before he even thought about it to grab at Tristan’s shoulder and lift the other man just enough to see. Then his other hand pinned down Tristan’s wrist, and with it the knife Tristan had been taking out. “ _What_? What are you doing?”

“My leg’s broken, you blind—” Tristan cut himself off there and dropped his head. His shoulders went rapidly up and down with a breath before he looked up again, far too calm. “Their trackers are good. You’ll have to stay with the stream for a long time before you can get out—there are some caves nearby. Go for those.”

“And I don’t have the slightest fucking idea where those are, so you’re showing me. Don’t argue or—or I’ll knock you out and you won’t get a say,” Galahad snapped. He yanked away the knife and shoved it into his belt, then swallowed hard against that damned panicky giggle that wouldn’t get out of his throat. No time to think, so…do.

Right. It hurt to leave the saddle that he’d had for so many years now, but he couldn’t carry it and deal with Tristan. The saddlebags he kept, with only what they absolutely needed in them. Then he yanked Tristan all the way onto the bank and rigged a splint; it was a bad break just from feel, but the bone hadn’t gone through the skin. “That should hold. And everyone thinks it’s a bad thing I took so long to learn how to ride in armor—it taught me about surgery, anyway.”

“You’re being an idiot,” Tristan muttered. He was still very white and when Galahad tried to stand him up, he didn’t even make it to his knees before he collapsed. His hand slapped against Galahad’s neck, then slid to push weakly at Galahad’s chest. “You don’t even like me. And you need to go. Someone needs to warn them.”

“If I only saved people I liked, there’d only be a handful of knights left. And I’m telling the truth; I don’t know how to get to the caves. So shut up and…oh.” Galahad’s hand had run across a warm wet patch on Tristan’s side. He swore, and he kept swearing as he pulled up the other man’s jerkin to see the deep oozing cut, as he hurriedly bound it up with strips of their undershirts.

By the time he was done, his muscles were trembling and weak and he just wanted to lie down for a few moments. But off in the distance were voices that he didn’t recognize, and they were coming closer. So Galahad threw the saddlebags over his shoulder and tied them there so they wouldn’t slip, then ducked down and got Tristan’s arm over his neck and his arm around Tristan. He staggered up, took a step forward and discovered that he couldn’t possibly have enough energy to make it.

Well, he’d have to. He took another step, and another, and eventually they were moving at a fairly good pace. Galahad ignored the pain and exhaustion till it all started to blur into a haze he couldn’t really feel, for which he was rather thankful because then he didn’t know exactly how terrified he was. “You weigh too much. And walking in the stream, great idea—the stones are slipping under my feet. I swear, when I see Gawain again I’m going to—”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll pass out and then you’ll have to carry me,” Tristan said, very quiet and very sharp. “Stop panicking.”

“I’m not. What’s there to panic over? Aside from you threatening to kill yourself, we’ve done this all before.” As jittery as Galahad did sound, he meant that. And it was true. “You’re not going to argue about that, are you?”

Tristan made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a pained grunt, edged with a peculiar rawness. “You’re an idiot.”

He was repeating himself, and the look he shot at Galahad was more glassy-eyed than anything else. If they didn’t find somewhere soon, he was going to pass out whether or not either of them wanted to.

“And you’re scared,” Galahad guessed, more because he needed to distract himself than because he was actually trying to judge Tristan.

He didn’t receive an answer. Swearing, he picked up the pace as much as he dared.


	2. Fear

Lancelot pressed his elbows into the mattress and lazily stretched, pulling on muscles from shoulders down his back to the hands circling his waist. There the satisfied ripple fragmented outward and turned his hum into a deep groan; his knees slipped a little farther apart to let Arthur in that bit more. The other man’s breath hitched and his teeth found their way to the join of Lancelot’s neck and shoulder. But they only grazed in passing—the morning light was a warm soothing bath over their skin and it simply wasn’t the time for that. It was just a sweet, slow slide of Arthur’s prick into Lancelot, of Lancelot’s knees on the sheets, of their last few gasps and sighs out of their throats.

“Good morning,” Arthur mumbled, settling down mostly on Lancelot’s left side. For the first time in months, he sounded genuinely cheerful. He licked at Lancelot’s shoulderblade, paused to twist his hips and pull out, then went back to tracing shivers out of Lancelot’s skin.

It certainly wasn’t a bad one so far. To judge by the length of the sunlight coming through the cracks of the shutters, Lancelot had even managed to make Arthur wake up late. That in itself was cause for celebration, whenever Lancelot worked up the energy for that.

He lifted himself on his forearms and bent down to nuzzle at a small thin scar along Arthur’s hairline. “Now aren’t you happy I pestered you for this?”

Arthur softly snorted and buried his face in the sheets, but not before Lancelot caught him smiling. He absently drew a hand up and down Lancelot’s back. “The men did need a break. Morale’s improved a good deal.” Of course, from there Arthur always had to go on to the cons of the situation. Faint worry lines drew his brows together. “I just hope nothing serious has come up at the Wall. Pelles doesn’t have much—”

His lips struggled for a moment against Lancelot’s, but they acquiesced soon enough. Damned man needed to stop spoiling the day before it had even really started. For that matter, he needed to stop measuring everything solely by the condition of his men. It wouldn’t matter how well-rested and ready for a fight they were if they didn’t have an able commander.

When they pulled apart to breathe, Lancelot nipped a last time at Arthur’s lip. “We’re in friendly territory. There’s only a handful of villagers, all delighted to have the business of bored cavalry. We’ve got a room with nice thick stone walls and a lock on the door. Only you would manage to still find something to—ow!”

He jerked away and began to reach back, but stopped himself before he made things any worse. And Arthur _laughed_ , cupping his hand around the spot he’d just pinched and daring to feather fingertips between Lancelot’s buttocks. If it wasn’t such a delicate, teasing…Lancelot told himself to squirm away from it; going the other way didn’t help his dignity any.

The other man pressed his mouth against the corner of Lancelot’s eye and patted him like he was an overfed barncat, then twisted around. Arthur swung his legs off the bed and started to dress. “I’d offer to make it better, but even rest-leave has its chores.”

“Nice to see your sparkling sense of humor show up,” Lancelot grumbled, flopping back into bed. He didn’t have to get up for another hour. The bed was nicely warm all over from their languid coupling a few moments ago, and if he curled just right, he could avoid the damp patch.

He only managed to lie still for a five-count before he resignedly pulled himself up and reached for his clothes. By then, Arthur was already done and standing over the water-basin, splashing his face. He looked over and arched an eyebrow at Lancelot, who made a face back. Letting Arthur wander around by himself invariably led to him working himself into a minor funk over something, and then they’d have to waste half the night getting him to admit it. And _then_ it’d be the other half of the night finding a solution, or if it was something that didn’t come with a solution, getting Arthur to just let it go for a while.

Lancelot gave himself a cursory run-over with a wet rag before throwing on his trousers and under-shirt. “So what’s today? Settling more farmyard disputes? Someone swipe someone else’s best hen?”

“You don’t have to get up,” Arthur observantly pointed out. He turned back to the bit of mirror he had propped up on a shelf and shaved another strip of cheek, then glanced at Lancelot.

“No.” A quick elbowing-aside of Arthur and a check in the mirror showed Lancelot he didn’t need to crop his beard today. He swiped the piece of soap Arthur had been using to make lather and took care of the few places that did need a touch of the razor. “But it’s fun to watch you treat little domestic issues as if they were coronations.”

Arthur stifled something that sounded like annoyance and went back to shaving. “Because out here, they might as well be coronations. The Britons have to see that Rome isn’t just a distant city, but a law and justice that can improve their daily lives.”

So they wouldn’t notice how with the other hand, Rome was slowly grinding them into powder, Lancelot almost added. But he glimpsed sobriety beginning to re-carve the lines in Arthur’s face, and he remembered the lightness of Arthur’s teasing a moment before, and he let the issue pass. For the moment.

Anyway, Britain wasn’t his land. There was no point in caring overmuch about what Rome did to them, except for how much more it made the Woads want to kill the Sarmatians, and it was hard to see how the Woads could get any more enthusiastic about that.

Arthur was staring at him, eyes dark and pensive. The man should’ve looked ridiculous, given the whitish foam drying on bits of his face, but instead he made Lancelot’s chest ache. “I know—”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Lancelot interrupted. He snagged his swords from the corner and tucked them beneath his arm, then grabbed an apple from the shelf. It tasted cool, sweet, uncomplicated.

“No.” It looked as if Arthur was going to push the conversation anyway, but at the last moment he changed his mind. He carefully scraped at the last bit of unshaved skin before rinsing razor and face. “Actually, I wanted you to check over the fortifications and see if they need any repairs. I’m taking out a few knights—there’s a few small-group formations that I’ve been wanting to try. Also, Tristan says he might be able to find wild boars for hunting later.”

Lancelot rolled his eyes and crunched more of the apple. “Wouldn’t Gawain be better for that? Or does having a nice wake-up fuck mean I have to do penance with drudgery?”

It wasn’t that deep a jab at Christianity, but Arthur flinched anyway. He folded away his shaving kit without a word, then picked up Excalibur. The set of his shoulders was starting to slump, as if there were lead weights attached to him.

The last bite Lancelot took from his apple shoved a painful sliver of its skin between a tooth and his gums. He cursed and picked it out with his nail, then stared disgustedly at the small piece of mangled red peel. Sometimes it seemed as if there was nothing truly harmless in the whole world, despite best intentions. “Never mind.”

A curled finger slid beneath his chin and tipped it up into a long, tender kiss that washed away the tiny spark of hurt. Then Arthur pressed their foreheads together before stepping back. He had a half-smile on his face that still bore traces of his earlier good humor. “I’d rather you do it. Gawain’s very capable, but he isn’t as…”

“Good as me when it comes to picking out flaws?” This time, Lancelot hoped the jeer would come off on the right level. He leaned against Arthur and grinned up at the other man. “How was the apple?”

“I need to remember to get more while I’m out.” Arthur, thankfully, decided to play along. He had another taste before he unlocked the door.

* * *

Dagonet eyed the recalcitrant stone, then braced the handle of a spare spade against it and shoved. It went in with a loud grating crack and a scattering of fresh chips at his feet, but the stone now fit snugly in the wall. He nodded at it and stooped to scrape up mortar to properly fix it in place.

“Bit of practice with masonry. Suppose it’ll come in handy when we get back home; Vanora’s been complaining about a draft.” This part of the wall curved sharply about, so Bors could be heard long before he could be seen. When he finally rounded the corner, he still wasn’t visible due to the huge armful of food he was carrying.

They’d patched nearly all of their assigned length of wall before Bors had left to snitch food, and during his absence, Dagonet had finished the rest. Then he’d done a few more to use up all of their mortar. Even if Lancelot weren’t preoccupied with a problem on the far end of the garrison, he’d have no reason to rebuke them for taking a break.

Before he sat down, Dagonet carefully raked off the mortar traces from his spade. He set it beside him and reached for a great wheel of cheese, which crumbled off pale yellow bits as he halved it with his hands. It was sharpish with an undertaste of grass, and it quickly melted away his hunger. He traded half for some bread and a pull at the wine-skin.

“Damn good food. Not that it’s up to Vanora’s, but still, not to be sneezed at.” Bors dropped his feet over the side of the on the platform edging the inner side of the wall and ate with wet smacking chews loud enough to attract attention from below.

Two of the village women were heading for the gate with baskets of laundry beneath their arms. One of them, a pretty-faced blonde, Dagonet recognized but couldn’t quite place. The other was a brunette with a long beaky nose and an ungainly mouth, but for all of that, she would still have garnered a few smiles if she hadn’t looked so sour. As the pair of them passed below him and Bors, the brunette tossed them a glower that could’ve curdled milk. She leaned over and noisily whispered something to her companion in Briton.

Bors suddenly choked. He stopped almost as soon as he started, swallowing hard and slashing the back of his hand over his mouth. “Cunt.”

For all his size and volume, at heart Bors was a strangely gentle, polite man. His mouth might have been the crudest among the knights by far, but it only ever kissed one woman. So Dagonet stared at his friend, wondering. Then he looked back down at the women.

Looking embarrassed, the blonde roughly shoved her friend up the path before turning an apologetic smile up to Dagonet. “Ho, knights. Lovely day.”

“It would be,” Bors rumbled back, still sounding uncharacteristically discontented. But he was already calming down, returning to his cheese and bread. “Peaceful town you have here.”

“Just as long as you didn’t bring the fighting with you.” The brown-haired woman apparently had quite a temper and refused to be shuffled away. “That wall’s worn down for a reason.”

Her friend turned on her and snarled with a startling, hideous vehemence that took both Dagonet and the woman aback. But then the blonde one was sunny again, showing off a rare set of white teeth. “Oh, I’m sure the reason they’re repairing it is so the fighting _stays_ away. Good day, sirs.”

She made a pretty curtsey that promised glimpses of breasts, which immediately drew Bors’ eye. Dagonet, however, found himself watching the other woman, who huffed and stalked away. Even when her friend ran after her and tried to tease her out of it, she refused to be placated. The last he saw of her was when she disappeared in the bustle that constantly surrounded the gate, the line of her back still stiff with anger.

“Well, well, Urien’s got himself a sweet one,” Bors laughed. He saw Dagonet’s confused look and slapped a hand on Dagonet’s shoulder. “No one’s told you? Urien’s been chasing that one—name’s Brangaine—for months, Dag. Finally talked her into his bed—‘s why he goes around now like he’s got his own private sun.”

“What about the other one?” She’d not looked so much angry as defensive at first, Dagonet decided. As if she were an ewe keeping an eye on a wolf circling the herd.

The other man shrugged, stuffing the rest of his cheese into his mouth. He garbled out an answer. “Some relative of hers. This is their home…heard Arthur was asking for suggestions about good places to take leave and Urien jumped at the chance to get closer to his little honeycake.”

That sounded like Urien, who was a decent officer but whose few weak spots were soft as rotten fruit. Though it didn’t sound quite like Arthur to select a place on such merits; he might issue a day pass for Urien to go visiting, but he wouldn’t shift his troops just to satisfy one man. “How’d he talk him into it?”

Bors shrugged. “Don’t need to talk—this is a nice place. Great big field over there, snug fort here even if it’s a bit chipped up…this used to be the frontier not so long ago. Gorlois—you remember him?—started out here with Arthur’s father. Man used to go on and on about Uther and how every day they’d kill fifty Woads before breakfast—hah! No disrespect to Arthur, but that’s horseshit.”

The part about the idealness of the location was true enough; the only real drawback that Dagonet could see was that it was a little ways from the main thoroughfares. No important roads ran within half-a-day’s march, and the nearest river big enough for sizable boats was even farther away. Its isolation both protected it from and bared it to attack.

“Not that I’d know for sure, but I’d bet Lancelot knew why Urien wanted it so badly and didn’t say a word because he thought it was funny. Got a bit of a nasty streak, him.” On that note, Bors chomped up the last bits of his meal. Then he sucked his thumb and each finger clean, popping them out of his mouth.

Dagonet suppressed a slight feeling of disgust and concentrated on his own food. To each his own, but something about that blonde woman raised his hackles. He much preferred the other one, since anger and fear were clear and understandable. “Maybe he wanted to make sure no one would bother Arthur. He can order Gawain around, and if Urien’s—”

Bors laughed. A few bits of bread flew from his mouth as he did, but then he was grinning like a small boy at Dagonet and squeezing Dagonet’s arm in shared amusement, and Dagonet forgot about being revolted. His friend was how he was, and that was all Bors needed to be.

* * *

“I still don’t like it.” Geraint bounced the piece of wood between his hands, then pointed the broken end at Gawain. He ran a nail along its edges. “See? The break’s still fresh. And this isn’t a regular hunting arrow. The shaft’s too thick.”

It did look like a crossbow bolt, and no one used those for anything but war. On the other hand, the Woads didn’t like using crossbows even in battle. It was a weapon for ranges shorter than ambushes, and it was too easily tangled in thick foliage. When they used arrows, they used regular bows. “Maybe it’s one of ours. Someone messing around, practicing their aim.”

“Since when did we have a knight using a crossbow?” Geraint snorted. Then he remembered who ranked and ducked his head, face flushing.

He shouldn’t have worried, since it was a stupid comment and Gawain had been regretting it the moment it’d left his mouth. Crossbows were a foot-soldier’s weapon, and the nearest legionaries were a day and a half’s hard march away. So either the arrow belonged to the knights, the villagers, or…there were Woads in the woods.

The day was sunny and hot enough to have gotten Gawain stripped to his waist, but nevertheless his gut managed to go icy. He took the fragment from Geraint and looked it over again, desperately searching for another explanation. They didn’t need this. They’d just finished recovering from their last campaign and they were heading into another one as soon as they returned to the garrison, and the last thing they needed was a fight in between those. They didn’t need this, and he didn’t want to see it.

And Galahad was in the woods with Tristan.

Gawain made himself stop and dragged his attention back to the matter at hand. “The head’s not right.”

“No. It looks like they’ve put a regular head on a bolt. But that’d be awkward to shoot…” Geraint frowned and thought, fiddling with the hair bracelet around his wrist. His girl had finally agreed to a marriage, but they’d forgone gold pledge-jewelry in favor of ones made out of their own locks to spare more money for a home. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever they do with it, it can’t mean well for us.”

“But you and your men, plus Tristan, have been going out every day. Shouldn’t you have seen more signs if there’s an army in the area?” Hopefully it didn’t sound as if Gawain was accusing, because he wasn’t. He was merely confused; the Woads were excellent fighters and on their home ground no matter where the fighting was, but no matter how quiet people were, the movement of an army left traces. And it wasn’t as if the knights hadn’t learned what to look by now.

The other man looked troubled and didn’t immediately answer. When he did, it was in a slow, hesitant voice that did nothing to sooth Gawain’s nerves. “We…haven’t been looking. We’re so far behind the Wall…one of my men found this when he missed a shot at a deer and went to retrieve his arrow.”

They hadn’t been looking. Well, of course they hadn’t, said Gawain’s voice of reason. They hadn’t had any reason to, no one had had any reason to expect them or ask them to, and so they were just lucky they were finding out now instead of, say, when their throats were being cut.

Gawain’s little flare of irritation turned in on itself and he reminded himself that hysterics weren’t going to help. It was edging on to evening and if they were going to do anything, they had to move quickly. “Where are your men now?”

“I sent most of them back here, but detailed a few to go circling in pairs. Three have come in so far and said they’d seen nothing. That leaves two pairs—one towards Arthur’s group and one towards where…Tristan said he’d be.” Geraint twisted his mouth a little around his last few words, as if to say he couldn’t guarantee the last one and Gawain knew why.

Which Gawain did, and that had been why he’d made Galahad partner up with Tristan. He didn’t doubt Tristan’s abilities or his intelligence, but the other man had a worrying tendency to go his own way without telling anyone. And since technically Gawain was Tristan’s troop leader and therefore was responsible for him, it was important to make certain he knew where to find the man.

If he was more specific with his honesty, he’d add that he was also still worried about Tristan’s habit of skirting the very edge of danger. He hadn’t known much of Tristan before Dinidan’s death had ripped out a whole side of the man, but somehow Tristan didn’t give the impression of being naturally reckless. He certainly had more than his share of iron nerves, but he was clear-sighted enough to know when to pay attention to the cost.

“Well, we have to wait for Arthur to get back, at least,” Gawain muttered. The point of sending Galahad along was to ensure that Tristan couldn’t wander too far. Maybe it was unkind of Gawain to be thinking of Galahad as a brake right now, but that didn’t diminish the truth in that image. So those two should be easy enough to reach. They’d be back in good time.

Gawain was fretting again. For the last time, he willed himself to stop. There might not even be anything worth worrying over.

“Where’s Lancelot?” Geraint asked, looking about. “Shouldn’t we mention this to him?”

“He’s been strengthening the fort walls.” The irony hung in the air between them like a leaden veil. So did the unspoken knowledge that, no matter how the situation turned out, Lancelot wasn’t going to take this news well. His idea of dealing with concern was to lash it out of himself and over the backs of whoever was nearest.

Maybe Arthur would come in before anyone could get to Lancelot, and then Gawain wouldn’t have that hanging over his head.

“I wish Tristan would remember we’re not all dead.” Geraint scuffed his boot in the ground, then savagely knocked out a clod with his heel. The fingers of one hand were curled over his sweetheart’s bracelet and they were slowly going white-knuckled. “He still has tribesmen around, even if he chooses not to bother noticing them.”

“Arthur keeps him busy—he’s constantly borrowing him from me,” Gawain said, voice a touch reproachful. There were many reasons why Tristan would want to act in such a way, and Geraint should know them better than Gawain did.

The other man obviously did, but frustration blinded him and kept his tongue loose. “Fine, fine, he’s preoccupied. But damn him, he can follow a trail better than—” Geraint cut himself off and stared with tired eyes at the broken arrow Gawain was still holding. “He should be doing this, talking to you. Not me. I’m not an officer—I never wanted to be.”

“I don’t think any _good_ officer really wants to be one; they just end up doing it because they want to make certain it’s done right.” Irritation forgotten, Gawain cast a sympathetic look on the other man. If that was the problem, then he wasn’t in any position to criticize Geraint. And for that matter, he’d also feel better if he were discussing the matter with Tristan, who never seemed to be unsure of his tracking and who never was wrong about it, either.

Gawain turned around and looked at the fort gates, which were wide open. Beyond them was the small collection of houses that formed the village, and then there was a thin dirt path leading down to the dark green woods. The sun had just begun to dip beneath the tops of the trees, turning everything red-gold. It was going to be a clear night, he thought. Lots of light from the moon and stars, so not quite ideal conditions for an ambush. But the odds were still not in their favor.

“I’ll go find Lancelot,” Gawain finally said. “You get Urien, and start quietly shifting people in here. Food, animals, the like. Tell them it’s a drill. And keep an eye out for the others—let me know the moment Galahad and Tristan or Arthur come in. Also get someone ready to ride for reinforcements.”

He started to turn, but stopped when Geraint grabbed his arm. The other man jabbed a finger upward. “Look!”

Gawain looked. It was Tristan’s hawk. And when it landed on his arm, its weight was nothing to the one that had suddenly filled him. He handed the animal to Geraint and went for Lancelot without any more hesitation.

* * *  
Tristan had long since passed into a haze of pain and dizziness and spotty darkness, so when he started seeing the dead, he wasn’t entirely surprised. They started out as whispers in the rattling branches of leafless trees, little half-heard words clipped off sharp steppes, but soon they were full-blown shades. Woads he’d killed: a long double line of them, heads bowed and feet dragging. Then came riding the knights, some of which had been friendly acquaintances, some brothers, and some enemies. Percival straightened to look haughtily down his nose as his charger wafted by, and Agravaine grimaced around some soundless insult as he drunkenly lolled in the saddle. Then he smiled, showing yellowed teeth, and raised his cup in a curse at Tristan.

After him came two horses, only one of which had a rider, who was wrapped so thickly in grey and black that Tristan couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. Only the hand grasping the reins of the other horse showed; it was large but so thin as to be nearly bones. As Tristan stared at it, something soft and white dropped off the back.

He found himself drifting forward between the horses, who obligingly moved to let him bend down. It was a maggot.

Tristan looked up to find that the rider had circled around and was now facing him. The veils dropped and Dinidan—but it wasn’t Dinidan, for one eye had been eaten out and the other one had a baleful red cast to it, as if accusing, and Dinidan would have never—it was reaching out its hand and the horse without a saddle was moving forward, an invitation to mount. When Tristan shook his head and tried to say not yet, the hand didn’t stop. There was another fat white worm on the fingertip and it was going to fall on his nose—

\--“Shut up!” a voice hissed. Something rough and firm and smelling of leather and sweat slapped over Tristan’s mouth. It jarred his head and his eyes flew open; he bit his tongue trying not to gasp.

Galahad’s wide, bright, strained eyes stared back at him from less than an inch away. They were lying down, crammed together in a…some kind of shallow hillside crevice. Over Galahad’s shoulder were bunches of dark stripes that, after a moment of squinting, turned into grass. Which rustled right by Galahad’s head as someone walked past them, tread light and wary. Even breathing through Galahad’s fingers, Tristan could smell the stench of the woad paint.

The Briton continued on, then drifted back to stand right in front of them. It must have been near night now, judging by the lack of light. Tristan couldn’t even see Galahad anymore, though he could hear perfectly well the minute hitches in the other man’s breath whenever the Woad moved. Galahad should have backed in the other way around, so if he needed to, he could swipe out with a knife…

No, that was a side of a knee Galahad had shoved against Tristan’s shin. So the other man had been turned the right way, but he’d had to twist about the last second to…keep Tristan from giving them away. Tristan silently cursed himself, and blessed the dark for hiding his expression.

Someone called to the Woad and he called back. And then there was the sound of…trickling water. The terror emanating from Galahad suddenly switched to incredulity so thick Tristan could almost smell it as well as he could the Woad’s urine. He hoped that Galahad wouldn’t be an idiot and break into panicky snickering.

The Woad stayed a little longer to do something, then wandered off. On the count of twenty, Galahad began to relax. At thirty, he risked a snort. Tristan started to work up his arm, but a ripping pain in his side put that to a stop. Instead he shook his head, hoping that Galahad would feel that through his hand and get the point.

Galahad did. After Tristan had made it to a hundred without hearing anything, he deemed it safe and bit Galahad’s palm.

“Son of a bitch,” Galahad snarled. He awkwardly levered out of the small space and stopped to look about. Then he ducked back in to pry out first the saddlebags, which were cushioning Tristan’s head, and then Tristan. “I keep you from getting us killed, so you bite me. What the hell was that, anyway?”

“What was what?” Tristan’s side periodically twinged, but the pain there was manageable as long as he didn’t overstress it. His leg, however, was still bad enough to make him collapse when he merely tried to get up on his knees. He ended up falling heavily against Galahad’s legs.

The other man dropped down and grabbed for Tristan, but in doing so, he let the saddlebags slide off his shoulder. One of them slammed into Tristan’s side and then it was brilliant burning stars.

When Tristan had finished blinking away those, he found himself staring at Galahad’s back. “You can’t carry me for that long.”

“No, I definitely can’t. So tell me that—” Galahad shifted his grip on Tristan’s legs “—we’re near a cave.”

They were, but if there were Woads wandering around here, then Tristan wanted to be further away. Ideally, they would aim for…his mind briefly went disjointed and he had to force it back into a train of thought. Galahad was shaking with exhaustion, and Tristan needed to get his wounds properly seen to. They’d have to make do.

Tristan blinked hard and craned his head around, trying to make out the landscape in the dark. After a moment, he spotted a marker he’d left a few days before. “Another thirty yards. There should be a lightning-blasted tree—”

“Got it,” Galahad grunted.

They went the rest of the way in silence. The cave was more of an overhang than anything, but that was probably better in their case. Some judicious rearranging of broken branches around the front, and it’d just look like another jumble of half-rotted trees and tangled shrubbery.

When Galahad put Tristan down, he did so with an impressive amount of care. Then he flopped onto his side and lay wheezing for a disturbingly long time. His eyes fluttered shut so the sweat dripping off his forehead caught in his lashes.

“Are you hurt?” Tristan asked, trying to look over him.

“No. But I want to pass out.” It was a measure of how tired Galahad was that he didn’t add on any sarcasm to that statement. He heaved himself up and tossed the saddlebags in the corner, then crawled over to Tristan. “You say odd things when you’re half-conscious. Turn over. I’m going to take off the bandages, rip up new ones, and try to stitch that cut.”

His sewing usually looked like a small child had doodled the thread onto whatever he’d been mending. One of Tristan’s favorite pastimes was guessing how long Gawain could watch Galahad mangle something with a needle before he finally took over and did it for the man.

Galahad had already gotten the strips unraveled from Tristan and was now creeping towards the stream that was running somewhere nearby. “Don’t look at me like that unless you want to sew up yourself.”

As it turned out, Tristan was able to reach half of it, and only had to leave the last inch and a half to Galahad. By then his vision was too blurry anyway to keep going, and he had ground his teeth through two thin sticks of wood. Eventually he’d gone deep enough into shock for it to mostly stop hurting, but Tristan tried to fight that because he wanted to stay capable of thinking.

“Done,” Galahad groaned, sounding as if he was the one who’d just had stitches. He rewrapped Tristan with the last of his undershirt before flopping onto his back again.

“We can’t have a fire,” Tristan quietly said. He pressed his forehead against the cool ground, feeling how quickly it leached the heat from him. It was summer so the night shouldn’t be too cold, but occasionally British weather produced a nasty surprise. “You need to get some large branches—ones still with leaves on them—and use them to screen the front.”

The other man turned to look at him, then frowned. But whatever Galahad was going to say never made it out before he dragged himself up and did as Tristan said. Then he reset Tristan’s leg, waited till Tristan woke up from that faint, and got them settled for the night.

The hollow was little more than a yard deep and they ended up having to curl together against the back. Galahad had gotten one of the bedrolls and they were lying on that with the saddlebags as pillows and their swords piled up between them and the entrance. Because of the screen, the air was stifling and stale, full of dried blood and filth and the sweet-sour smell that Tristan usually assigned to dread.

“You heard what that Woad said,” Galahad suddenly murmured. “Someone called a retreat into the fort. So they’re warned anyway. Good thing.”

“Luck, since otherwise it would’ve been up to you.” Tristan stared at the pitch-black around him, which was so like and unlike the blackness that appeared when he closed his eyes. If he concentrated hard enough, perhaps he could fool his body into thinking he had shut his eyes.

Growl in his ear. “Stop trying to guilt me, you jackass. No, it wouldn’t have—you think I could have gotten through them on foot if I’d left you? I just spent the better part of two hours shoving us in and out of bushes to keep from being found, and that was only creeping on the margins of them. They’re thicker closer to the fort.”

Galahad had an arm over Tristan so he could keep his sword in hand. It moved, bumped against Tristan’s arm and followed it to find Tristan’s fingers digging into the ground. Satisfied, it crawled away. The silence filled with Galahad’s question.

Which Tristan answered with his own question. “What was I saying?”

“I don’t know. You weren’t speaking my dialect.” The other man hesitated before going on, which was odd for him. “But you said ‘Dinidan’ a lot.”

* * *

When Gawain found him, Lancelot had just been about to call it a day. The fort was in surprisingly good condition and had only needed a few spot-fixes, which meant Arthur wouldn’t have any excuse to not have free time. No villagers had pestered him with arguments to adjudicate in Arthur’s absence, which boded well for lack of that distraction. And it looked as if it wouldn’t be a rainy night, so fine weather as well.

Then Gawain walked into Arthur’s room, and his face said it was going to storm anyway. Lancelot went still. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Gawain winced and shook his head, muttering to himself. Normally he wasn’t the fidgeting type, but now he couldn’t seem to stop moving around the room. “I mean, nothing yet. But one of Geraint’s men found something odd…”

He produced a thin bit of wood and handed it to Lancelot. At first glance, it looked like a snapped-off head of an arrow, but its shaft was unusually thick.

“Never seen anything like—”

“You wouldn’t have. They gave these up decades ago.” Lancelot watched his hand tighten on the shaft till he could hear the wood creaking beneath the strain, could see the blood fleeing his fingers. Then he let go and quickly passed it back to Gawain. “The only reason I know is because Arthur’s told me, and he had it from his father and Gorlois. The Woads tried thicker arrows and stiffer bows to punch through Sarmatian armor, but you can’t shoot as quickly. Uther figured out ways to engage before the Woads could let off a flight.”

But this one wasn’t decades-old, and that was the fear reflected in Gawain’s eyes. Desperate hope was there as well, but it was fading with the sun. “It’s the only sign—well, except for Tristan’s hawk coming back without him. Geraint’s sent out men to check again, and none of them say—well, no. There’s still two pairs that aren’t in yet. The one after Tristan and Galahad, and…”

“The one going after Arthur,” Lancelot finished, since it didn’t look as if Gawain was going to. He tasted phantoms of bitter blood in the back of his throat and felt them curdle before he swallowed them down.

It’d been four days. They should have had another three, but it looked as if they would have to say farewell to those. Though Lancelot was used to that, it still clenched his jaw and twisted his insides to do it. It’d been so long since they’d gotten time off, and it’d be so long before they got it again, and Arthur had actually begun to unbend…Arthur wasn’t back yet.

“I told Urien and Geraint to start moving people inside, just in case.” Gawain spun the arrow fragment between his fingers, then glanced out the unshuttered window. For a moment, the dusky red light painted his face in fierce worry. “It should be another quarter-hour.”

“We’re not supposed to order that unless Arthur does it. You owe me if he throws a fit.” There wasn’t any reason for Gawain to look grateful about that. Even if Lancelot hadn’t claimed responsibility for the slight overstepping of boundaries, he’d still get a share since whenever Arthur was gone, he was temporary commander. And he’d be the only one with the balls to argue with Arthur instead of seethe in quiet.

Not that Arthur was likely to object, given how he preferred to err on the side of caution when it came to protecting people. Of course, then the overall effect was to increase the danger, because he always overstretched himself.

“Lancelot? Lancelot—” Urien ducked in the room and checked himself when he saw Gawain. Then he shrugged and barged in anyway. “So you’ve heard? Listen, the village elders are getting upset, and they aren’t buying the ‘it’s a drill’ story. They want to talk to Arthur.”

“Well, they’re going to get me. Arthur’s not here yet, damn him.” And until he was, Lancelot had to sit tight and handle things. As much as he wanted to go out and see for himself, he couldn’t leave the fort with no commanding officers. Urien had trouble just keeping his troop in control, the other knights barely accepted Geraint and his men, and Gawain didn’t have a tactical mind.

Arthur had better come back soon, Lancelot snarled to himself. And for the last time, he needed to make certain the idiot didn’t go out without him.

All right, blaming Arthur for the Woads was unfair, since no one knew they were even around. But Lancelot was going to do it anyway because being irritated drowned out the increasing shake of his nerves. He pushed past Urien and headed out to the fortress gate, where he immediately spotted the disgruntled elders.

Only one of them was actually white-haired enough to qualify as an elder; the other two were a middle-aged man with a clubfoot, which explained why he hadn’t been drafted into the legions, and a hawkish, harsh-looking woman. The elder identified himself as Bran, and the younger pair as his stepson and his daughter, Gromer and Branwen. “We’ve been uprooted from our village and roughly pushed about by your knights. For the span of my life, we’ve been nothing but faithful to Rome, so why are we being treated in such a fashion?”

Jols happened to be going by with Arthur’s spare horses and Lancelot just glimpsed him rolling his eyes. Rightly so, since this village had been passively resistant about sending supplies at least once in Lancelot’s memory, and the distance that they were moving now was a hundred yards at most. They probably did this every winter anyway. “I…apologize if there’s been needless offense,” Lancelot carefully said. Hopefully, he wouldn’t choke too obviously on his words. “But it’s for your protection—there might be a threat nearby. The more you cooperate, the easier it’ll go.”

“That’s what they say about rape,” muttered Branwen. Once Arthur had dragged Lancelot into some broken-down temple and spent an hour talking about the Greco-Roman myths carved into its stones; up until now, the sex against the altar had been the most memorable part. But Branwen strongly reminded Lancelot of the harpy relief.

Her father and stepbrother both looked horrified at her words, the former quickly apologizing and the latter dragging her off for a tonguelashing. That wasn’t going to work, considering the amount of steel in her expression.

“I just want to reassure my people,” Bran told Lancelot. “We haven’t had a battle near us in years.”

“Better pray that your countrymen don’t force one, then. Stay inside the fort and keep out of our way.” Out of the corner of his eye, Lancelot could see a billow of dust envelop a sudden burst of shouting at the gate. He started to lope towards it, but Bran had a surprisingly strong grip.

The other man had grabbed Lancelot’s elbow, and now was peering at him with eyes that were still formidable beneath the rheumy age veiling them. “All we want is peace. We’ve no quarrel with anyone.”

“No, which is why we’ve made a specialty of dying in other men’s places.” Lancelot shook him off and flapped a hand towards the inner fort. “Go see to your people. I’ve got to see to mine, and I’ve no time for this.”

This time, Bran didn’t stop him. But the other man did betray a flash of—pity? It’d better not be that, or diplomatic necessity notwithstanding, Lancelot was going to introduce him to a steel point. The knights might be cast as pawns in Rome’s game, but they weren’t broken to the mold yet.

Through the swirls of dust and the grabbing hands, Lancelot glimpsed patches of dusty red. His mouth started to curve up, but then the cloud cleared further and he could see that it wasn’t Arthur. It was one of Geraint’s men, and he was covered in blood. “Attacked—they were down when I got there. Barely outran the Woads.”

Gawain came running from nowhere to seize the reins to the man’s horse. He jerked down the skittish horse’s head and, by all appearances, willed the beast into dropping its head between its knees and quivering still. Its rider slid clumsily out of the saddle and wiped flecks of horse-lather out of his face; he had another one of those odd-looking arrows sticking from his shoulder.

“Who was down?” Lancelot demanded. He shoved his way through the mass of questioners and grabbed for the knight. “Who was down? _Who_?”

“Stop shaking him.” Geraint elbowed Lancelot to the side and tried to interpose himself between his knight and the rest. 

Understandable reaction for him to have, but Lancelot wasn’t in the mood. He snatched Geraint aside and suppressed the whirling snarl of fear inside of himself just enough for speech. “Who?”

“Who’d you go after?” Gawain interrupted. He clapped a hand on Lancelot’s shoulder and used that to push himself into view. When Lancelot flicked a warning glance over, the other man looked so murderous that it actually shocked Lancelot into letting Gawain be. “Tristan and Galahad, or Arthur?”

“Arthur.” The knight gasped and slumped against his horse, clutching at his wounded shoulder. “Arthur. The other two—I don’t know where they are. I didn’t see who--but the Woads are thicker than fleas in there.”

Lancelot’s hand went for the saddlehorn, but found that someone else had gotten there first. He blinked, saw the world waver from its heat-ripples to straight. Breathed and felt his mind unwillingly click into place, heard the men asking for orders, saw Gawain lifting his foot towards the stirrup. _No_. They couldn’t.

“Get down!” Lancelot snapped, yanking Gawain back. “You can’t—Urien! Is everyone inside? Close—close--”

“But they’re still out there!” Gawain ripped himself free of Lancelot’s grip and rounded on him, eyes like bonfires. “If we—fuck, you can’t even say it! Arthur’s out there and you can’t—”

No, Lancelot couldn’t. It was what had to be done, and he always could do that, but not this time. Arthur was supposed to be the one who made the choices that rent hearts and spirits. He was the one who was supposed to feel the circumstances like a noose around his throat, and Lancelot was the one who was supposed to show him that the knot could be undone.

But if the gates were left open, they’d all die. And Arthur would kill him—Lancelot’s mistake would be Arthur’s guilt, and it’d strangle him too fast for anyone to save him, and then the rope might as well be around Lancelot’s neck as well.

“Close the gates.” The words came out so mangled that even Lancelot didn’t understand himself. He couldn’t stand to look at Gawain, so he pivoted and shouted at Urien, who was frozen in place by the gears. “Close the damned gates! Didn’t you hear me?”

“You think they’re dead,” hissed Gawain.

They’d been arguing in a dialect none of the other knights understood very well, but they’d still been saying too much. The words were cramming up in the top of Lancelot’s throat and compacting all the way into his lungs, making them burn—and they’d just have to burn. “No, I don’t. But someone’s got to be around to open the gates for them. So _shut up_.”

The gates whined, dropped into a groan and finally crashed shut. Urien bent over the lever that worked the doors and wheezed a few times. He was staring from Lancelot to Gawain and back again, as if they were the first tumbling rocks of what might be an avalanche. Geraint had snatched his knight out of the way the moment Lancelot had let go and sent him packing to the surgeons, but had remained himself to watch them with fretful eyes.

Gawain wasn’t yet done; he had clamped his hands on Lancelot’s shoulders and seemed to be trying to snap the bones with his grip. All the color in his face had concentrated in his eyes, which were half-mad and ready to go farther in it. “You were going to go out. You were going to fight me for the horse.”

“And if I’d done it, you could bury me as a fool and I wouldn’t complain. If we leave the gates open, we’re inviting in the Woads and then we’ll all be dead anyway. If we leave by ourselves, that terrifies the men.” Lancelot saw the next insult rising in Gawain’s eyes and felt his temper snap. “Damn you, if I weren’t being rational about this, you’d be on the ground with my sword in your belly and I’d be on that fucking horse! Do you want me to kill you?”

“No, I want you to—” The other man slumped back and looked away, hand coming up to press knuckles hard against his mouth. Then Gawain nodded. Kept nodding, though he still wasn’t meeting Lancelot’s eyes. “All right. All right. I’ll get watches up.”

Instead of watching him leave, Lancelot stared at the sky. It was deep purple, and stars were beginning to emerge. It would’ve been beautiful any other time, but now it just made him want to vomit.

“Lancelot—”

“Urien, make sure those Britons are doing as they’re told. Geraint, pick out your sharpest-eyed men to man the gate.” With that, Lancelot spun on his heel and went to go find Arthur’s maps.

He was only a few yards from the room to Arthur’s door when his stomach pushed too hard and he had to skid on his knees to an empty basin. In a few moments, Lancelot had coughed up every single thing he’d eaten in the past day. He closed his eyes and wiped half-heartedly at his mouth. Rested the side of his head against the wall. “Arthur, I swear, if you’re dead then I’m going to…you’d better not be. You damned well can’t be.”

Then Lancelot got up and, moving like an old man, reached for the rolls of vellum.

* * *

Dagonet was on his way to the outer walls when he spotted the shadow. It froze, then broke into the dim lopsided circles of torchlight. That brown-haired woman.

He jogged around the spear-stack and easily intercepted her. She hissed and slapped at him, so he caught that wrist and dragged them both down. For several long moments, she did nothing but twist and spit words at him that he didn’t know—it sounded a little like Vanora’s tongue, but not enough to be intelligible. He waited it out. When she had exhausted herself and was nothing but a pair of snarling eyes, he let go. “You’re not supposed to be beyond the inner walls.”

“You’re not supposed to be here at all. It was calm here—no blood and no fighting. Then you show up, and between you and the Woads, our homes are going to be trampled.” She wrapped her arms around herself and swayed back a few paces. Her chin lifted. “I was going to find my stepbrother. Your officers drafted him for a watch.”

“We had to. We’re short of men.” He walked around her and stared up at the small figures on the walls. “Do you know where he is?”

The woman was quiet for a heartbeat. Then, a little confused: “Over there, I think.”

She pointed at Urien’s stretch of the wall, which was closest to the inner fort and had the safest posts. Dagonet nodded. “That watch comes off now anyway. You’d do better to catch him at the inner gate; if you go up to the wall, they’ll think you’re a whore trying to make some money.”

He walked a few yards, then turned around to check. The woman was still standing there, staring at him, but when she saw him looking back she swiftly slipped off in the direction of the inner gate.

When Dagonet reached his assigned position, the first thing he saw was another woman: Urien’s Brangaine. She was laughing amidst a group of three knights that had just ended their shift, her hair a dreamy treasure in the low light. Beside her was a proud, jealous Urien who constantly kept one hand on her shoulder or waist.

“Well, hello from this morning,” caroled Brangaine. She waved and flashed her pretty smile.

It still unsettled Dagonet, but he knew better than to insult an officer’s girl. He made the briefest smile he could and didn’t stop walking. Behind him, he could hear the usual comments about cold backs and strange quiet ones, but for once he was grateful for that reputation.

Walking along the wall was Lancelot, and when he saw the activity below he let loose with a torrent of abuse long enough to touch the sky and vitriolic enough to eat a man alive. Urien hustled off Brangaine, shooting a dirty look back at Lancelot, while the other knights quickly beat a retreat to the inner fort.

Dagonet blinked, then looked again. For a moment, Brangaine’s face had been the face of a monster, vengefully eying Lancelot. But she’d almost immediately draped herself over Urien’s shoulder, and judging by the sound of things, was urging him towards the nearest secluded spot.

“Urien and his?” Gawain had come up the steps behind Dagonet, and he addressed his question to Lancelot. Both men had gone gaunt and feverish, the bones of their faces standing out beneath their skin as if they were burning from inside out. “Those fucking jackasses…as if this was still a pleasure-outing.”

“I’d make him stand guard at the gate all night, but he’d probably have his eyes more on the bitch sucking his prick than on outside,” Lancelot snarled, leaning over the wall. He dropped his head between his hands and roughly raked fingers through his hair, then pressed his palms to his temples. “Dagonet? Anything so far?”

Startled, Dagonet almost blurted out something about the other woman. But she’d gone back inside, so he decided against it. “No. Is…excuse me, sir, but do we know where Arthur is?”

Lancelot’s back went stiff. “No,” he curtly replied. “Why?”

Behind him, Gawain was making warning gestures and trying to stare a message at Dagonet, but it wasn’t quite making sense. Dagonet regretted not having asked Bors more about the so-called gossip concerning the officers, since clearly he was out of his depth here. What he did know, however, was that an already angry Lancelot was not a man to whom one refused answers.

He ended up telling the truth. Lies stank too strongly for him to have ever learned how to tell them. “The men are asking. They’re worried. They were…there’s some others who didn’t ride in either, and all we’ve heard is that there are Woads in the woods.”

“I don’t even want to think about what the rumors are like by now,” Gawain muttered. He rubbed at his eyes and sighed, then stared down the hill at the forest as if he were trying to will something out of them. “We’ll have to say something.”

“Maybe thank you for actually noticing, as opposed to those whoreson fools.” Something that was too mauled to be a laugh came from Lancelot, still hunched over. “Tomorrow at first light, we can send out search parties. And another messenger if we don’t see anyone coming from the other garrison. I don’t think we have to say anything till th—”

The whoop was too full of violence to be from an animal throat. All along the wall came answers in the form of clinking metal, whining bowstrings, soft muffled clattering of arrows in quivers. Lancelot was up and staring over a nocked arrow a heartbeat before Gawain smashed himself against the wall, squinting at the dark.

Dagonet had his own arrow ready, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t see anything in the black fringe that was the forest. The space between it and the fort was wide and clear in the bright moonlight, but where field met trees was a sharp line and beyond it, nothing was apparent.

He glanced to his right and saw men standing ready with drawn bows, glanced left and saw the same, plus one man staring back at him. The whites of the knight’s eyes gleamed and widened; the man hurriedly turned away. There was no sound now except for the harsh, tense breathing of the knights on the wall.

And then there was light: flaring red and settling to lurid orange. It revealed a clump of broad oak trunks, and pegged to them were limp lolling things. Somewhere on Dagonet’s right, a knight cried out and was hastily stifled by those around him.

“Lamorack,” Lancelot muttered.

“Alymere and Cei are the other two. _Damn_.” The knights were from Gawain’s troop, and their loss bowed the man for a long breath. Then he exhaled and straightened, jaw firming. “We can’t make the shot from here. No point in wasting arrows.”

Lancelot jerked his head in agreement and stepped back to lower his bow. He turned, probably to give the order, and as he did, another torch blossomed by the treeline, highlighting something bulky and flapping. It looked like a body.

The sound that came from Gawain was high and desperate, and the only thing that saved him from throwing himself blindly over the wall was Lancelot seizing his arm. Something hit Dagonet’s foot—Lancelot’s bow and unused arrow—but he ignored that in favor of helping Lancelot drag Gawain back.

“It’s just the saddle!” Lancelot was saying over and over again, shaking Gawain. “The saddle!”

But no knight was ever willingly parted from his tack. That and his weapon were all that stood between him and a gory miserable end; he cared for them, adapted them to his needs, made them his own. If the Woads had Galahad’s saddle, then at the very least, he’d had a disastrous run-in with them.

“They would show the body if there was one.” Dagonet dropped his own bow and took a firmer grip on Gawain’s arm. The other man was still struggling, but less so, and he soon stopped.

He was still staring over the wall. “But what did they wrap around it? The red—I thought it was strips of flesh…”

“Arthur’s cloak.” Limp as a rag, Lancelot fell against the wall and gazed blindly across the field. He started to raise a hand, saw that it was trembling and slapped it against his thigh, rubbing hard as if that way he could smooth out his nerves. His mouth continued moving without letting out any sound. Either curses or prayers could have fit the shaping of his lips.

“Stand down,” Gawain whispered. He cleared his throat and somehow choked himself so he had to do it again. Then he raised his voice so everyone could hear. “Stand down! Don’t—don’t waste your arrows!”

Very quietly, Dagonet let go of Gawain. The other man still noticed, but he only glanced at Dagonet before stumbling off. And his eyes were black in the night, but rawer than fresh meat.


	3. Rage

What little sleep Galahad got was fitful and full of unease, wearing him out faster than staying awake did. When he finally gave up, the angle of the one stray moonbeam filtering through the screen told him it was still well into the night.

Tristan was so still that at first Galahad thought he was dead, but when he held a hand over the other man’s mouth, warm breath moistened it. He sighed, so relieved that he forgot about the low ceiling when he tried to sit up. “Ow! Fuck!”

“Quiet.” Fingers dug hard into Galahad’s shoulder and dragged him back down.

He had been twisting around towards the front, intending to get some fresh air, so he ended up landing across Tristan. His one elbow cracked on the rock and curses snagged in his teeth, but Galahad clamped his lips together and listened. Then he remembered Tristan’s wound and tried to slide back, but Tristan tightened his grip and wouldn’t let Galahad.

Cold bastard—he wasn’t nearly as impervious to things as he liked to pretend he was. His breathing was irregular and, even if it hadn’t had that edge of pain to it, would’ve told Galahad something was wrong just by dint of it being audible.

Above them came a muffled pattering of something fairly large—it sounded like four feet instead of two, but Galahad couldn’t tell for certain. He strained his hearing and his sight, trying to make out something in the faint shifting shadows beyond the screen. It wasn’t till his head began to spin that he realized he’d stopped breathing and was on the verge of passing out. Galahad sucked in a long breath as quietly as he could, but the noise he couldn’t help making was still dangerously loud to his ears. Tristan’s thumb jabbed hard into Galahad’s shoulderblade.

The footsteps, whatever they were, moved on. But Galahad didn’t relax till he felt the hold on his shoulder loosen and fall away. He felt around till he found the ground and pushed off of Tristan—promptly forgot the ceiling again—to hunch over the other man. Rubbing his head, Galahad whuffed the air. “Are you bleeding again?”

“I don’t think so.” Something spidery crawled between Galahad and Tristan; it took a moment for Galahad to realize it was Tristan’s hand feeling at the wound. They were too closely pressed together and Tristan couldn’t quite squeeze it down.

Galahad squirmed back, but got his knee and foot trapped against some irregularity in the cave’s sides and had to stop. He put down an elbow, accidentally hit Tristan’s chest, and moved it till he could prop himself up. Then he wiggled an arm back to try and figure out how to move his leg. “Sorry about that. Fucking lousy cave you found us.”

The laugh that ruffled Galahad’s hair was raspy, but amused. “Next time I’ll look for one with a bath and a bed.”

“Oh, shut up.” Though Galahad was actually relieved to hear Tristan being a teasing bastard again. As irritating as he was, at least then he wasn’t scaring Galahad with his silence.

After Galahad had said that name, Tristan had clammed up so tightly that he hadn’t even reacted when Galahad had accidentally jostled him. It had been rough on Galahad’s already raw nerves, and there really hadn’t been any way to fix things short of waiting it out and hoping Tristan would…well, he’d never forget, but maybe he’d shove it out of his mind. He’d better; they had more important things to worry about besides nightmares or ghosts or whatever had been nagging at Tristan, as cruel as that sounded.

“Gawain’s probably half-mad by now,” Tristan suddenly murmured. He turned away as Galahad finally yanked his leg free, then rolled back so his eyes were a pair of gleaming slivers. “We left the saddles. The Woads would’ve used them to make the others think we’re dead.”

“Saddles, not our bodies. Gawain’s not that stupid. He’d know the difference.” Galahad’s voice started out firm, but by the last word it was wavering just a little. The last thing he’d needed was something else to worry about, and now here Tristan was, adding a bit on. “And he’s not the kind of man to go insane. Lancelot, maybe—his temper’s going to get him someday—but not Gawain.”

Not him. He was steady and dependable and he almost never lost his temper. Sometimes Gawain might get annoyed and snappish, but that wasn’t the same as the total rage that enveloped Lancelot whenever he came storming from an argument with Arthur. And even irritating Gawain took a lot more than it would for any other man. Inside the fort, shut behind those thick walls, he’d be safe and would have plenty to do to keep himself distracted. He wouldn’t go mad.

Tristan was still looking at Galahad, and now he was slowly rocking about, shifting his broken leg by inches. If he really hadn’t moved since Galahad had starting dozing, then he probably had some horrific cramping. “What if you were in his place, and he was here?”

“I’d probably be more worried about what you might be doing to him. You two are awfully close—he’s constantly fretting about you,” Galahad snarled, hoping that’d end the discussion. He didn’t want to think about Gawain right now, since all that did was remind him of exactly how much was at risk here. The slightest mistake and the Woads would be on them, and they’d be dead in this damned foreign land and he’d never get to see Gawain again.

Thinking about that made Galahad’s hands start to twitch, made his mouth go dry and his mind blurry with all the nasty what-ifs. And he needed to concentrate, not panic.

“You’re jealous?” Wonder of wonders, Tristan sounded shocked.

“I was being sarcastic. It was a bad joke.” Having a Woad come by was suddenly sounding like an attractive option, since then they’d have to stop talking. Galahad listened hard, but he didn’t hear anything except the low buzz of insects and the occasional passing wildlife.

And Tristan was still prodding at him, so there definitely wasn’t a hope of a distraction soon. “Odd joke to make.”

“Then I’m sorry I made it, all right? I’m sorry I brought up Din—that other bit, and I’m sorry I’m not having the reaction you think I should be. But what am I supposed to do? I’m here and Gawain’s in there, and what good is it going to do to think about how worried he is?” Galahad started to flip around so he was facing the other way, but there wasn’t enough room and he had to turn back. His legs were being crowded because he’d let Tristan have the longest patch so the man could stretch out his broken leg and his head was aching from the hard bumpy saddlebags. There were a thousand hurts and twinges making themselves known throughout his body and there was an army of Woads between him and Gawain, and the only reason _Galahad_ wasn’t going mad was by pretending that everything was fine behind the fort walls. All he had to do was get him and Tristan in there.

They weren’t going to make it. Two men, one who couldn’t walk and one who was too damned tired, against a mob of Woads. The damned Britons didn’t need food and water, Galahad sometimes thought. They could live off their hatred, and Galahad could never match it because he had to spend part of his energy hating Rome for putting him here. In this fucking airless cave that was so dark he couldn’t see the ceiling, so for all he knew the earth was about to collapse on top of him and then he’d die.

“He thinks I still want to die.” For once, Tristan was distracting Galahad at the right time. Even if his voice was quiet in that way that made Galahad’s blood creep softly as a mouse, and his words were even more terrifying.

Galahad found himself talking louder to break the stillness that had frozen around them. “Gawain doesn’t know what you want to do. You don’t _talk_. Aside from how many Woads over the hill and what an idiot I am, you don’t say a damn thing.”

“What good would talking do? I’m here and _he’s_ not.” Tristan didn’t stutter over the mention, because stuttering probably didn’t even exist in his world. It wasn’t quite a pause either, but an interruption in speech that told more of present pain than absence, or lack. “Which isn’t the same as you and Gawain.”

“No,” Galahad admitted. He shivered even though he wasn’t cold. “I hope it never is.” It was too dark and he’d never liked that anyway; it’d still been night when the Romans had ridden into his village, and he hadn’t been able to remember anything besides the blurry white face of his mother because of the darkness. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be dragging you around, or jumping every time I hear something outside. I think about Gawain and I start to fucking panic as if that’ll help, but I’m not taking it out on you, am I?”

He had the impression that Tristan was staring at him, but it was impossible to tell for certain. As usual, the other man wasn’t giving any cues with voice or movement that’d help Galahad figure out whether he’d just mortally insulted Tristan or given him something else to laugh about. If Tristan was in anything like a laughing mood.

“Aren’t you?” Tristan finally said, a trace of teasing in his voice.

“I’m complaining. There’s a difference.” Galahad prayed that Tristan wouldn’t ask what it was, because he wasn’t in any condition to explain. He just knew there was one. “Just…sleep, all right?”

Something rustled, and then soft things touched at Galahad’s face. They disappeared and resurfaced to poke at his arm, then squeezed it. “If I go to sleep, I think I’m dead. And I don’t want to be.”

Whatever he meant by that, Galahad had no idea, but it was clear Tristan felt strongly about it. And the things that Tristan let people know he felt strongly about could be counted on one hand. “Cave’s too damned small,” Galahad eventually muttered; he did agree with Tristan about that. It was too much like a grave. “Fine, stay awake with the living. But don’t whine about the company you get.”

“I could have worse.” Tristan spoke too softly for Galahad to tell whether or not he was being sarcastic.

Someone crunched grass by the mouth of the cave. They both froze.

* * *

Over the years, Gawain had had some long nights. The one before his first battle, shivering sleepless in his bedroll and staring at his sword and wondering if he was going to piss himself before or after he had to swing it for the first _real_ time. Various sieges—the night when Arthur had been hovering near death and they’d almost lost the only man they’d ever freely acknowledged as commander had been one of the worst. One humid summer week where the fevers had risen from the swamps and swept through the countryside, and he’d had to sit and watch Galahad lie too limp to even hang his head over the side of the bed to vomit.

But this night was by far the worst.

After the Woads had displayed their trophies, Gawain had forced himself to go among the knights and make certain that none of them would act rashly. He spent the most time seeing to his men, who were the angriest because they’d lost friends, comrades, and in one case, someone to curl around at night. At first he thought it would be unbearable to listen to, but to his surprise, it was…comforting. He couldn’t be fearful because that would lead to collapse and too many people were counting on him, couldn’t be enraged because then he wouldn’t be able to stop, but he could let other people do it and it was as if they were excising the thoughts that clouded his mind and constricted his throat.

Eventually he ran out of knights to see and so he took himself to check on Lancelot, whose temper was never particularly restrained in the best of times and who’d nearly incinerated himself with anger and worry the last time Arthur’s life had been in such danger. Gawain found him on the highest part of the wall, staring over the woods.

“Geraint sent out a man. If the Woads didn’t get him, and if he rides his horse into the ground, he should’ve made the other garrison by now.” Lancelot nodded in the direction of the nearest Roman troops. The muscle in his jaw looked as if it’d snapped tight and then gotten stuck that way, and his eyes were ringed in dark circles that made them look obscenely huge and worn. “Magnus Maximus holds it—he’s one of Paullus’ more competent underlings. He’d know better than to light a signal bonfire for the whole countryside to see.”

“So we’d have no way to tell if Geraint’s man got through.” Odds were not too bad that he had, but still, Gawain knew better than to pin his hopes on a perhaps. The Woads were reviving old tactics, stealing ones from the Romans—someone had a firm grip on them and for the first time in Gawain’s memory, using them to wage war and not to just win battles.

From below came a high, girlish titter that was almost a scream. But Gawain had been around enough whores to know what a real refusal sounded like and what a fake one masking a come-hither call did. He gritted his teeth and wondered how easily Urien’s neck might snap. Maybe the bastard hadn’t lost any men and maybe his girl really was the love of his life, but that should only have made it more obvious to him why he shouldn’t flaunt her about. Especially right now.

The curl of Lancelot’s lip as he looked in the direction of the laugh could have cut steel. He pressed his hands against the stone, then abruptly shoved away from the balustrade and whirled down the stairs. Though he didn’t make any gestures to that effect, it was plain he expected Gawain to follow. “We don’t have any food stockpiled. Come morning, if they’re still dancing around out there, we’ll light a bonfire and give Maximus a day. Then we’ll have to just try and crash the Woad lines if he doesn’t come.”

“There’s got to be a better way,” Gawain protested. “And what about any men the Woads might—might be holding?”

Lancelot paused with one foot raised. Then he shook himself hard and continued downwards, back and shoulders even more tense. “Gawain, I _know_. But I also know, and so do you, that if we’ve—we’ve no sign in three days, or if the Woads don’t show any, then there’s no chance. And we need to get out, or starve.”

“But crashing the lines—”

“Well, do you have any better ideas?” The other man stopped again and whirled around to back Gawain against the wall. “I spent two hours staring at Arthur’s maps, and then another two up there, trying to see another way—but I can’t.”

Going unspoken was the knowledge that Lancelot’s strengths didn’t lie in strategizing for groups larger than a troop, or for longer periods of time than the flash-seconds during battle when the initial plan went to pieces. He could understand strategy far better than Gawain, and he could point out practical flaws in Arthur’s ideas without even thinking about it, but somehow he couldn’t make the leap Arthur could and see not only the cracks in the solid wall, but the way to get a full-grown horse through them. And it was hurting him, frustration layered in his eyes on top of the desperate wish that he didn’t have to think about this.

“I can’t,” Gawain admitted. But they both knew that didn’t mean much; Gawain’s idea of tactics had never gotten beyond how to keep Galahad alive without getting killed himself. What they needed was Arthur.

Brangaine laughed again, so bright and cheerful that Gawain imagined ripping her golden hair out by the roots and suffocating her with it, and to his faint horror, he found himself relishing that image. The disgust was faint because most of his mind was preoccupied with wondering, now that he had allowed himself a moment to think about it, how badly hurt Galahad was. Whether the Woads did have him and were saving him for the next night, or whether he was still at large in the woods. Abandoning his saddle meant that, at the very least, he thought he was too weak to carry it with him.

“Tristan’s with him,” Lancelot suddenly said. If it wasn’t such an impossible emotion for the man, Gawain would’ve thought that Lancelot looked sympathetic. “That one…he’s probably having fun sneaking up on Woads and cutting their throats.”

In all honesty, Gawain had forgotten about Tristan since he’d seen Galahad’s saddle. Now the new worry rushed in and scraped another layer off his nerves just in time for the guilt to sting them. He pressed his hands against his face and tried his best to make himself calm down, but he didn’t manage very well. “If I knew that that was why Tristan is how he is, I wouldn’t have sent Galahad along with him.”

“Scared of what he’d do to Galahad?” Lancelot’s tone indicated that he was back to being a sharp-tongued bastard, but something about how he rushed his words told Gawain that it wasn’t quite that. The man was trying to distract himself.

And for that matter, Gawain was doing the same thing, so he was grateful instead of annoyed. “No. If Tristan were like _that_ , then I wouldn’t even bother with him. It’s…I just hate seeing needless death. We have to look at enough of the other kind without adding that.”

“So what’s wrong with hi—damn it, if Urien doesn’t shut her up, I will. What the fuck is there to laugh about?” Lancelot snarled, turning towards the sounds of merriment. His fists beat a fast brutal tattoo against his hips, then slowly uncurled. “You know, I regret ever letting Urien have a say in picking this spot. He should have to snatch moments like everyone else in this damned army.”

“That’s a selfish thing to say,” Gawain observed.

Which earned him an arched eyebrow and a stare that glittered like a swordpoint. “Tell me you don’t feel the same.”

The silence was sour. When Gawain parted his mouth to suck in a breath, having forgotten to breath for a moment, it swept in and curdled on his lips so his tongue burned.

He’d expected Lancelot to pounce and follow up with more barbed words, but instead the other man closed his eyes as if the dark pained him. Then he opened them, showing a hollow pain that echoed too strongly in Gawain, and pushed by to walk towards the gate.

* * *

Tristan breathed as shallowly as he could, one hand stealing across the cave floor to find a handle. The shape of the hilt wasn’t one of his, but in this situation he wasn’t going to be picky about what he used to defend himself. Over his side crept Galahad’s hand, going for the same pile of weapons; thankfully, the other man didn’t jar anything.

The steps had stopped right beside their cave, blocking out the trace of moonlight that had been all that illuminated the hollow. That had been forty-three counts ago, and the Woad still hadn’t moved. He wasn’t looking around, or talking to anyone else, or even taking a piss, and it was that lack of movement that worried Tristan. The deliberateness, as if he knew they were there and was trying to work on their nerves till they betrayed themselves.

An owl hooted. At least, it was very like an owl. But no bird-call Tristan knew of had that pattern, so it was probably a Woad scout. The one by their cave shifted his weight a little, as if hearkening to it. Galahad’s mouth was pressed against Tristan’s neck and it was moving. Praying, perhaps. A few times the tongue accidentally flickered out to touch his skin. Once it was Galahad’s teeth. It was then that Tristan realized he was biting down on his lip so hard he was drawing blood.

Grass rustled and sticks crackled as the Woad finally decided to move on. A relieved, almost noiseless breath ghosted down Tristan’s nape, and Galahad pressed his forehead against Tristan’s back in a gesture of such familiarity that it was obvious the man had forgotten who else was with him.

Fortunately for him, since if Galahad had done it on purpose, Tristan would have had to kill him. Even though he was, surprisingly enough, developing a liking for Galahad’s blunt, unconscious intelligence. Because that simple gesture called up sense-memories and feelings that only ended in a great gaping rent, and it hurt. Tristan did want to live, and he had accepted the fact that Dinidan was dead and he wasn’t, but that didn’t mean he’d yet adapted to _living_ with it. One couldn’t rewrite memory and reflex to just cut out the warm body and the ready laugh that had been woven around Tristan over the span of years.

Galahad suddenly noticed what he was doing and jerked back. Then he made an embarrassed, defensive sound. “Ah…are they gone?”

“I think so. But they’ve been coming by too often. We must be too close to their night camp.” Tristan pried his hand off of Galahad’s sword and very carefully tried to roll over. His side immediately complained, but he ignored that and kept twisting. If his leg didn’t start to hurt more than it already did, then he should be fine.

Halfway through the turn, Galahad caught on. Hands cradled Tristan’s ankle, lifted it and rolled it with him before setting it down. “So we’ve got to go? Is there another cave nearby?”

“Yes, but I don’t know…you should go check it before we move everything. It’s a hundred yards south—just follow the stream. There’s a…” Tristan struggled to remember “…large oak tree hanging over it. Looks like Bors throwing up.”

A strained chuckle escaped Galahad, as if he’d temporarily forgotten how to be amused. Then he let out a full-blown laugh and crawled past Tristan to peek through the branches of the screen. “Sometimes I see why Gawain likes you.”

“Likewise,” Tristan dryly replied. He curled himself against the side of the cave so Galahad had more room.

After a few moments of tentative poking, Galahad finally risked pushing aside a branch. Then he moved a few more until he had a space big enough to squeeze through, and went out with sword in hand. He stopped with his legs still inside to take another look around the area before he finally pulled himself completely out of the cave. Tristan was a little impressed by the man’s care.

“I’m going to put the branches back now. Shouldn’t take more than a half-hour—if I’m not back by then—well, you probably wouldn’t go after me anyway, seeing as that’s stupid.” Galahad was talking a little faster than normal, but he didn’t sound rattled enough for that to be a concern. It was more like he needed to mutter to ground himself. “Try not to bleed to death while I’m out. Or do anything idiotic.”

“I won’t,” Tristan snorted. He found his own sword and dragged it towards him before the light was cut off again.

It was dark, but there was the sound of Galahad fussing with the branches, and then the receding tramp of Galahad’s boots. Hopefully he was capable of being a little quieter than that.

But then even that vanished, and it was only Tristan. He tried to concentrate on the sound of his breathing, but it didn’t echo correctly—it wasn’t paired with someone else’s, and it was very dark. Like being buried. And what noises there were outside weren’t of man; with how the leaves and the earth muffled them, they barely sounded like living creatures.

Galahad was coming back, Tristan told himself. And neither of them were dead. He was breathing. As long as he could hear that, he knew what he was and where he was. He might be wounded, but he had his sword and he could stay here till Galahad returned for him.

He would go after Galahad if he had to, he thought. He needed to know there was something outside of the pain and the musty air and the dark with its stubborn phantoms.

* * *

Lancelot knew he should be trying to get some sleep—light napping at least—but whenever he tried, his mind would fool him into thinking that he heard Arthur calling, or just glimpsed the other man passing him. And then he’d wake and the knot in his chest would prove once again that no, there wasn’t a bottom to pain. Not this kind, anyway; if it’d been an arrow or a edge-wound, then he could happily drift into shock and sleep through it.

So he loitered about the wall, annoying the sentries with his constant pacing and frightening them with his expression. He didn’t care. By now they should be used to it, and if they had any comments, he’d be happy to argue the point with his swords. That might work off some of the energy that erratically surged through him, leaving him drained at one moment and nearly ready to leap hilltops the next.

He ended up staying near Bors, who was concerned and respectful enough to keep his voice low, but who managed to babble about petty daily details in a way that distracted without irritating. Lancelot even made himself crack a few salacious remarks about Vanora, which should’ve put the wind up Bors’ back, but instead just made the other man look…relieved.

The night wore on. Dagonet came to replace Bors; the two friends spent a few moments chatting quietly before Bors took his leave with a hearty, “And somebody better wake me if there’s fighting!”

The whole wall laughed, some with nervous girlish titters and some with the full-throated bellow of a soldier who’d been through too many battles to feel much anymore. Even Dagonet smiled, which was a rare event.

“Weren’t you up here before?” Lancelot asked. He tried to straighten out his memory and gave himself a headache, which was ridiculous. In other campaigns he’d had to be on his feet without sleep for far longer than this, and his mind had worked fine then.

Except then he’d at least known where Arthur was. Even during the mess with Lucius, he’d known that Arthur was injured badly enough to attract death’s attention. Kneeling by that bed and looking at Arthur’s unconscious form had been a terrified haze that still chilled Lancelot to remember, but at least he’d known. Now he was working blind—he didn’t even know what had happened, aside from attacking Woads. Had they followed the knights from the wall? Had they been waiting ever since the Sarmatians had arrived? What were they doing here? How’d they know where to go?

Where was Arthur? Was he dead?

“I was, sir, but for an early shift. I volunteered to go again so we wouldn’t have to pull as many villagers.” Dagonet propped his ax against the balustrade and stood his quiver beside it. He started to feather his fingers between the ends, making certain that the arrows weren’t tangled together and could be grabbed without snarling each other.

“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ Just follow my orders and that’s all the show of respect I need. I’m not a stuck-up Roman.” It could even be another attempt on Arthur’s life, courtesy of that Merlin they’d been hearing about. Some Briton who’d done the impossible and had managed to impose order and discipline on the various rebel factions, and of course he and Arthur would have some mysterious grudge. Arthur wouldn’t be Arthur if he didn’t have a personal stake in everything he did. For every loyal dog like Jols that he got, he made two enemies.

If he thought it wouldn’t come out absolutely terrifying, Lancelot would’ve laughed at himself. He wasn’t in a position to comment on dogs. He just wanted—he bit on his lip till that pain overwhelmed the other one.

It was still dark, but the faintest glimmer of light could be seen on the horizon. The best time for an attack—when men’s courage was down for the rest it needed to meet another day, and when their reflexes were slowest. But so far it didn’t look as if there was any movement. Anyway, whoever had built this fortress had known what they’d been doing. The checking Lancelot had done earlier had shown him that: even after some years of neglect, the only repairs needed were more cosmetic than anything. If the Woads wanted in, they’d need nothing short of siegecraft, and if they’d had that they would’ve already brought it out.

“Lancelot?”

It was Urien, of all people. Lancelot reminded himself that killing the man meant dickering about to find a new troop leader, and that the last thing he needed right now was _another_ crisis of leadership. Then he went down the steps to deal with whatever the jackass wanted. “What?”

Urien’s right eye was closed a little further than his left and his lips had a strained look to them, as if he were trying very hard not to wince. His breath reeked of alcohol he shouldn’t have had, but his eyes were almost too clear. Hangover. “Sir, I…I wanted to apologize for earlier. It wasn’t appropriate of me to…”

This time, Lancelot didn’t correct the use of ‘sir.’ Bastard didn’t deserve it. “No, it wasn’t. Don’t make me list how many regulations you broke. The only reason you weren’t punished at the time was because we were busy dealing with the Woads.”

Arthur would smile, a little amused and mostly sad, if he could hear this. As if Lancelot didn’t break all sorts of regulations…but at least when he did it, he didn’t increase the likelihood that they’d be killed. Whereas every time Brangaine flipped up her skirts, a whole nation of Woads could pass by and no one would notice.

“I’m sorry. I know—it’s only that Brangaine finally said she’d marry me, and I…I…” The other man shuffled his feet and ducked his head. One hand stole up to rub at his temple.

Hopefully it was one bitch of a headache, Lancelot vengefully thought. He wanted to excoriate Urien some more, flay him with words with all the sentries as an audience, but he couldn’t, damn it. They were too short of men. If Urien was really and willing to act like a knight, then Lancelot had no choice but to take him. “You’ve got watch till dawn. And I swear on my sword and saddle that if anything goes wrong, it’ll be on your head. Let me know immediately if Arthur comes in.”

Dagonet should be near for the whole of Urien’s watch, and he seemed to be loyal to Arthur out of genuine emotion, so he could be a check in case of anything stupid. Given his size, he should be able to handle anything short of a legion on his own, and Lancelot had a feeling the man was considerably more intelligent than Bors was.

A curt nod to Urien, and then Lancelot was off to Arthur’s rooms again to stare at maps. There had to be another way.

* * *

When on sentry duty, some men just shoved their trousers to their hips and pissed over the side of the wall, but Dagonet preferred a little more privacy than that. He didn’t particularly enjoy the kind of ribbing and eyeballing that went on during that kind of display, so he usually climbed down and did his business on the ground. There were always enough wagons and piles of supplies scattered about for him to be able to find a secluded corner.

He’d just redressed himself when the edge of his vision alerted him. “Your stepbrother’s not on the wall now.”

“No.” The woman was leaning against a post, profile turned towards him. She and he were both hidden from sight by the same wagon, but anyone standing directly above them on the wall would be able to see them. And the nearest knight was Urien, who had been a martinet during the past few hours in his efforts to get back in the good graces of the other officers.

“You should go.” Dagonet checked the color of the sky—it was a dark gray backlit by eerie green. The sun would be up in another hour and then they’d all be busy.

She crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. “So should you. I’m Branwen.”

“Dagonet. We would have left in a few days anyway. But the Woads showed up, and now I don’t know.” He glanced upwards and didn’t see Urien, so he chanced stepping a little closer. Her shoulder hunched up in defense, but she didn’t move.

Branwen was older than he’d thought at first, with a few deep wrinkles around her mouth and a constellation of fine ones around her eyes. A thin white scar crossed one cheek and drew up her lip so even when she wasn’t trying to, she looked as if she were scowling. “My mother got herself and my brother killed fighting you and the Romans. I’m just sick of it. My father and I have worked all our lives to keep the battles away—we make whatever deal we need to, and maybe that makes us less true than others, but it keeps us alive.”

“My grandfather refused to let the Romans draft my elder brother and they cut out his eyes. When they came for me, he was going to let them kill him, but I went because my younger sister still needed him.” Because of that, Dagonet would never be able to go home, but at least he knew the rest of his family would stay together. It’d stopped hurting a few years ago, and now he had Bors’ family to slowly start filling in the holes. “We didn’t bring the Woads here.”

“I hope whoever did never has a peaceful night of sleep,” Branwen savagely replied, glowering at the lightening sky. “And don’t think I’m forgiving you, either.”

Dagonet hadn’t been, but he murmured an acquiescence to satisfy her burning look. It seemed to puzzle her, but then, it sounded as if she’d been living on the edge of a spinning sword, always on the verge of losing her balance. His life was at least as dangerous, but there were constants in it to which he could and had accustomed himself. He could learn to live it once and then not have to change, whereas she looked like she lived from uncertain deal to deal.

“Not all of you are like I’ve heard.” Now Branwen was grudgingly impressed. She picked up her skirts to get them out of the mud and started to slip away. “I hope you don’t die here, anyway.”

On the end of her comment came a sudden grinding shriek—the gates?

Branwen was a whirl of brown hair and brown dress in the corner of Dagonet’s eye, but he ignored her in favor of running toward the gears. He ducked around the wagon and looked up for Urien, but something splashed him in the eye. When he wiped it off, he saw that it was blood.

“Stop!” he heard Gawain shout. “Urien!”

“He’s dead!” someone on the wall shouted. “He’s—that bitch!”

“Stop!” Gawain said again, ragged and breaking.

At the gears was Brangaine, the front of her dress damply clinging to her lovely figure. The fabric was dark, but Dagonet could smell the fresh blood. She had her hand on the lever—the advantage and disadvantage of good Roman engineering was that the gate-gears could’ve been operated by a determined boy, and Brangaine clearly wasn’t as soft as she seemed. But the gears were old, and they’d gotten stuck so the gate was only open enough for a single man to pass through. Ignoring the men raising arrows and running towards her, she was throwing her weight against the lever in an effort to send the gate rattling open.

“Brangaine! What are you—” And then Branwen snarled into Briton, throwing herself at her relative. She got a hand in Brangaine’s hair and nearly dragged her off before there was the wet thunk of a blade forcing its way into flesh. Eyes wide and shocked, Branwen staggered back and fell to the ground at Dagonet’s feet, clutching at the dagger in her thigh. He nearly tripped over her and had to use a precious moment to right himself.

The other woman hissed a long string of vituperative Briton, rage and bitterness transforming her beautiful face into something terrifying. Then she threw up her head and boldly stared at Gawain. “Your stupid friend put you all in our hands. We’ll kill your great general and then we’ll kill the rest of you.”

“Damn you, there’ll be reprisals!” shouted Branwen. “The Romans will level our village for it, or the Woads will kill us for cooperating for so long!”

“Who’s cooperating? I didn’t—I took that bastard’s prick for the sake of Britain and for the memory of my aunt-- _your_ mother.” And with that, Brangaine turned back to the lever.

Gawain raised his sword. “Don’t you—”

She moved and his blade flashed forward; Brangaine’s head whipped through the air to nearly hit the Woad surging through the door. He was screaming and he had his ax raised to cleave Gawain’s skull, but the other man seemed transfixed in place by the sight of Brangaine’s collapsing body.

“Archers!” Lancelot appeared scrambling over the top of a wagon, waving a sword at the petrified sentries. “You fucking morons, turn around and shoot!”

He wasn’t near enough. Dagonet seized a spear from a nearby stack, hefted it, and skewered the Woad. The force of his throw knocked the man, who’d been a hair from killing Gawain, into the next one squeezing through the gates. Outside were chilling screams and the beating of many running feet, but now the knights were shooting down at close range. They’d be killing as fast as they could nock arrows.

Gawain snapped back a step and almost lost his balance, but a charging Woad drew his attention and he turned his fall into a low swing that slashed through the Woad’s thighs. Then he cut the man’s throat and moved to meet a woman that was trying to swing a garrote about his neck. Lancelot whipped a sword through her spine in passing and leaped up the steps to direct the fight there.

The Woads couldn’t send more than two in at a time, but they were still keeping the knights too busy to call for the others. They needed to shut the gate.

Dagonet plucked another spear from the stack and slammed it horizontally forward, catching two Woads in their midriffs. He swung the make-shift staff above his head and brought it down to crack open a skull, then kicked the other one out of his way and into Gawain’s ax. That brought him right up to the lever.

“You bastard!” And somehow Branwen had made it to the lever as well despite her injured thigh. She grabbed the lever and defiantly glared up at him. “Are you going to kill me too?”

If he had to, he—something flickered to the side and Dagonet turned to meet it. He shoved the spearpoint through the Woad’s throat just as hot fluid splattered the back and side of his head. When he turned around, he saw that another one had tried to slash at Branwen and she’d yanked the dagger from her leg to take him in the chest. The Woad was still alive, and he went at Dagonet with maddened eyes that cooled slowly when Dagonet sliced his throat.

Metal wailed and grated. Branwen, sobbing and cursing everyone, dragged down the lever. The gates slammed together, shutting out the Woad ambushers except for a few unlucky Britons. One of them had a bow and whipped it up to aim at Dagonet. Then her head exploded in a mist of red gobbets and chalky bone fragments.

“Dag, damn it. I told you to wake me if anything got started.” Bors stepped over the body with a surprising nimbleness and took care of the other Woads in short measure. Then he hefted his kukri and walked over to clasp Dagonet’s shoulder. “Didn’t get hurt, did you? Looked messy for a bit.”

The noise outside was dying down, and the dawn light painted the knights on the wall in reds and oranges and pinks. A yard away from Dagonet, Branwen was hunched over her cousin’s body, shoulders shaking and hair drawn to hide her face. Blood was soaking her skirt and pooling in the dirt. About three yards beyond her, Gawain was gasping to a stop and staring at Brangaine’s head. “She…”

“Did Urien up pretty badly,” Lancelot called down. His grim tone had an ironic twist to it that made everyone look slantwise at him. “I’m guessing she shoved a knife in his groin to hit the artery and then kissed him so he wouldn’t make a sound.”

“She…” Gawain’s expression was torn between horror, fury, and revulsion.

Bors gave the other man a concerned look. “Gawain? You’ve killed women before…”

“But they don’t look—they all look the same with that woad on them,” Gawain murmured, hollow and confused. Then he shook himself and the rage came simmering to the forefront, though his eyes still remained shadowed. “She was spying for the Woads? And that’s why Galahad—”

“Damn you. And damn her. You’re all the same, woad or no. You do what you have to and don’t care about anything except yourselves.” Branwen sobbed once, the noise muffled because she had her face pressed to Brangaine’s breasts.

Lancelot flinched. Then he squatted down on the edge of the platform, hand draped casually over his knee. The jeering light in his eyes barely covered up the raw fury and fear. “And where’s the difference between that and you? You and your father have your damned village—we’ve got our commander and our brothers-in-arms.”

When Dagonet looked up at him, the strength of the other man’s glare didn’t diminish, but he bit back whatever else he was going to say and returned to giving orders. Dagonet handed his spear to Bors, who gave him a puzzled glance but didn’t say anything, and stooped to pick up Branwen. She curled nails into his neck till he felt drops of blood rise, but didn’t otherwise protest. The blood loss was probably making her feel faint, if she hadn’t already passed out.

“You and you, wrap up her head and her body and take it inside to her family,” he heard Gawain order in a soft voice. “Dagonet?”

“I’ll explain,” he called back.

Bors caught up with him and wriggled his eyebrows, trying to ask without actually asking. But since Dagonet hadn’t yet figured out the answer, he didn’t give one.

“And I thought you liked blondes,” Bors finally sighed. “You’re an odd one, Dag. Here, I’ll get the door and you try not to knock her head on the frame.”

* * *

Galahad swept his sword out in front of him, testing the dimensions of the new cave. It was definitely larger, but the way the oak tree hung roots over it made it almost invisible. He’d had to spend a good ten minutes poking around before he’d found it, and he had known where to look.

The huge old tree actually made Galahad think of crashing rock and cave-ins and no air, but he pushed away his paranoia and acknowledged that the place seemed secure enough. It certainly was more defensible than the other cave.

He carefully backed out of it and scaled down the hill, noting how steep it was. Getting Tristan up there was going to be all kinds of fun, but Galahad thought it might be possible if he tried a few things and if Tristan’s weird tolerance for pain held up. Anyway, no point in worrying about that till he needed to. First was getting back to Tristan, and second was getting Tristan over to this one.

Walking back went better since it was now dawn and Galahad could actually see where he was going. Of course, that meant that it was easier for Woads to see him as well, but he was cautious enough to do Gawain proud and he was fairly sure he hadn’t been followed.

Once he’d reached the old cave, he stooped down and whistled under his breath before he even touched the branches. The last thing he needed was some stupid case of mistaken identity—normally he wouldn’t worry about that with Tristan, but the other man had been…twitchy. Which wasn’t even supposed to be possible with Tristan.

“You make a poor bird,” Tristan grunted, pulling himself out with his elbows and one good knee. He shoved their things ahead of him, then waited for Galahad to clear them out of the way. “Did you find it?”

“Moldy, but it’s roomier than this one.” Galahad wrapped everything into a bundle and strapped it to his back. He was reaching for Tristan’s arm when a twig snapped.

His hand flashed back to his sword and he stared wildly about, while beside him Tristan was scanning the area more deliberately, but with no less intensity. The forest around them was full of morning mist that turned the light grey and pallid, as if they were moving in a land of the dead. But there were birds singing somewhere, and the lingering smell of boars that had passed by earlier in the night, so it wasn’t completely depressing.

“Nothing?” Galahad whispered.

Tristan’s hand had clamped to his side. The line of his mouth was slightly twisted by pain. “No. We can…” He cocked his head, eyes going unfocused.

Galahad didn’t even see it coming. One moment he was staring at Tristan, the next he was tumbling down the hill—with a _drawn_ sword—gasping from the hard elbow in the gut and praying that he didn’t slice himself. His flailing hand caught on something and he yanked himself to a stop, then flung himself about to look up. “What the fuck—”

Woads. One was falling backward with Tristan’s dagger in his throat. More were dropping from the trees, and they were swiftly ringing the two knights. But in their hands were staffs, not bows or swords or…oh, _fuck_. No. _No_.

The feel of the air behind Galahad changed—a breeze. He automatically threw himself down. Ate dirt and reared up to spit it at the Woad swinging at him. Then he slashed out with his sword, felt the tip catch and knocked the man further down the hill. The blow hadn’t wounded too deeply, but it should take him out of the fight for a little while.

Above him, Tristan had surged to his feet; the effort and the pain he had to be feeling made his face white and corpse-like, but he cut past the first staff aimed at his head and gutted that Woad. Another one struck at him from behind and he parried it—almost parried it, because his leg gave out and he slumped forward. Almost at the same moment, a staff slammed into his shoulder and sent him rolling towards Galahad. He knocked aside two Woads, which would’ve helped if he’d been able to get up afterward. But instead Tristan went frighteningly limp against a tree-stump.

“Shit—” Galahad clawed upward while trying to look backward and forward at the same time. Blue blurs all below, blue blurs around and up…no way out. Brown blur coming at his left. He dug one heel into the ground and forced himself into a desperate spin to avoid the staff.

And he did, but there had been one coming from his other side that he hadn’t seen and it knocked the wind out of him. He staggered, saw an ankle and cut at it. Blood splattered his face and into his mouth, which he hadn’t realized was open. He gasped and _then_ it hurt, back and ribs exploding with pain that made lights dance before him so he couldn’t see where his attackers were. Instinct got him scuffling backward, away from the Woad he knew was still there; his hand slapped a shin and he was throwing himself sideways before he even thought about it. A stone smashed into his hand and scraped it raw, while a pole-butt smacked into the ground where his temple had been a moment before.

There weren’t any bluish shapes to his left, so he scrambled that way till his hand landed on another hand: Tristan. Galahad whipped about to see who was behind him and overbalanced so his feet slipped out from under him; he stabbed down with his sword and barely kept from sliding, but then he couldn’t block the blow coming at him.

So Tristan did it. He still had his sword and he threw it so it took root right between the Woad’s eyes. “You should’ve gone!”

“There wasn’t a way!” Damned bastard. Gawain had better appreciate all the trouble Galahad was going through to keep Tristan—a Woad whirled a heavy staff high above them.

Galahad’s sword was stuck in the ground, and he didn’t have any other weapons he could grab. Not that any of those realizations consciously crossed his mind. All he knew was wondering why the fuck he’d just thrown himself over Tristan, and then his head smashing into blackness.

* * *

After they’d carried off Urien’s body, Lancelot saw to the sentries at the gate himself. He didn’t think there were any other men involved with Briton women—most usually went for half-Sarmatian bastards or, if they had some rank, the daughter of a knight who’d settled in Britain—but he wasn’t about to risk another Woad trick. They’d already surprised him with too many.

“I have killed women before.” Haggard and drained, Gawain dragged himself besides Lancelot. He rubbed at his eyes, then looked at the stain Urien had left; there wouldn’t be time to wash the stones till later. “Never had a problem with it.”

“Because usually they’re trying to kill you at the same time. If there’s a sword coming at you, you don’t give a shit who’s holding it—you just want to live and them to die.” And also in the morning, Lancelot would have to deal with those damned villagers. Bors had gone off with Dagonet, so there wasn’t any danger of knights being lynched, but passive hatred could be just as bad. It certainly lasted longer, and he knew that from firsthand experience. “Imagine her stripped and slathered with Woad and there wouldn’t be a problem. She happened to be dressed as the kind of woman that we haven’t been ordered to kill yet. That’s all.”

The other man shot a fierce, revolted look at Lancelot that almost immediately turned pensive. Then Gawain sighed and pulled at his shoulders. “The things you say are so damned cold. Do you really think you’re like that?”

“It’d be nice not to care, wouldn’t it?” Lancelot squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to force away the fatigue. “Get the—”

Something thin and frail came soaring over the wall. An arrow. And when a sentry handed it to Lancelot, he saw that there was a piece of parchment wrapped about it.

* * *

One of the knights had been trying to train a new horse and he’d been having so much trouble that Arthur had finally traded his for it in order to try his hand. Such a little thing, yet it’d saved him. At the first Woad yell, the green stallion had panicked and bolted, plunging into the woods and crashing past the Woads through sheer terror.

Though Arthur hadn’t remembered any, they had to have shot arrows at him because later he found one stuck in his chainmail sleeve, and a graze from another tracked its way over his horse’s flank. That had been probably what had sent it into a new tangent, blindly charging a tree and just swerving at the last moment. But not soon enough to keep Arthur’s cloak from tangling in the branches and ripping him backwards; the fabric had ripped free, but by then he’d had his head bashed into a thick branch. The world had gone hazy and it’d been all he could do to remember to cling to the saddle, let alone try to think about what had happened.

Eventually the horse had begun to tire, but just before it had calmed, some small animal ran across its path. It reared and bucked, and this time Arthur’s grip wouldn’t hold. He was tossed from the saddle and landed on his head and shoulder and hip. It’d knocked him out for most of the night.

When he finally woke, it was nearly dawn and a Woad was turning him over. But what Arthur’s disoriented, dizzy eyes saw first was the metallic gleam in the other hand.

He lashed out with his feet and slammed the Woad’s knees out from under her, then seized the hand with the knife. Her mouth was wide and red, and in a moment she would be screaming—so he twisted her arm, still slack with shock, and cut her throat. Her knife dropped, and then she did because he’d flung her back. Hot coppery stuff dripped over his face and neck and stung his tongue, and more made his fingers sticky when he pressed them to his temples and tried to understand what had happened.

In the weak light, the woad covering her skin took on an angelic sheen, like highly-polished marble. Her breasts lolled, full and shapely, and her throat was a gaping red ruin. Then it was Lancelot there, eyes open and dull in comparison to the bright red blood.

Arthur threw up. He vomited hard enough so that he had to put down a hand to support himself, and that was how he remembered the knife that she’d been pointing at his throat. His fingers curled around it and that was how he remembered the twang of bowstrings, the hard crash of knights falling to the ground, the way his desperate denying call had ripped at his throat.

Breathed in, and his mind cleared a little beyond the gore. They’d been ambushed—the knights that had been with him. Tristan and Galahad, also in the forest. The village and the fort—Lancelot. How bad was it? Had they all been killed?

He stared at the Woad’s corpse and watched Lancelot’s face flash over hers once again. The coldness started in Arthur’s gut and quickly spread outward to turn him into moving ice. A river of it as from Gorlois’ stories, grinding and creaking as Arthur stood up.

The leaves rustled. Such a small sound, but it cracked through him and suddenly hot rage was surging through the fractures. He didn’t even feel the knife leaving his hand, but it did and the Woad fell from the tree. Arthur was over to him in two long steps and slapping the sword from the man’s hand, seizing his arms and slamming him up against the tree. “What did you do? _What did you do_?”

The man smiled. So the heel of Arthur’s hand rammed against the dagger in the Woad’s shoulder hard enough to crack the collarbone. The man tried to scream instead and Arthur shoved his gauntlet across the Woad’s mouth to stifle it.

The rage and the grief boiled and seethed into a crystalline thought. Arthur breathed again and watched his sight go flat and gray. When he asked a second time, he did so in a very low voice and he did so while applying precise pressure to the break in the Woad’s collarbone. “What are you doing here?”

“We were invited.” Though the uptilt of the Woad’s chin made it clear he was telling Arthur as a taunt, his voice shook and his eyes were wide with fear.

“Who do you have and what did you do with them?” He wasn’t here, Arthur thought. He shouldn’t be here anyway. He should be back with his knights, scratching out maneuvers in the dirt with a stick and looking forward to getting apples for Lancelot. It didn’t feel like he was here.

It felt like broken ends of bone just beneath the skin, and if he moved his hand that way, the Woad’s mouth opened. “Killed the knights with you,” the man gasped, trying to spit the words at Arthur and getting cut off by the pain. “Showed their bodies, your cloak to the rest of your men. Someone screamed for you.” Nasty smile that Arthur stopped by simply snapping his fingers against the break. “Have more. We almost got in once—this time we’ll be pushing your knights ahead of us and they’ll open the doors wide for our swords. Now!”

Except Arthur had heard the soft footfall and was already dropping to the ground. More blood splattered his back as the second Woad killed his comrade. He didn’t have time to be horrified because Arthur hooked hands around the backs of his knees, then flipped him over and grabbed his sword-arm with one hand and his hair with the other. Arthur yanked and there was a wet snap. The Woad gurgled and spasmed while the air filled with the fetid stench of his emptying bowels.

This one had found Arthur’s sword from wherever it’d fallen when the scabbard straps had given way. After freeing it from the Woad, Arthur checked the blade: freshly sharpened, cold, good for little but killing. It suited his current mood.

A stray beam of light filtered through the mist miraculously unblurred and made a small pool of gold on the ground. Its edge just touched the edge of the blood flowing sluggishly from the two Woads. For a moment, Arthur remembered himself.

“God, I commend to thee Lamorack, Alymere and Cei, as well as any other knight that has fallen. Though they be not Christians, treat them according to their merits, which are—were—great, and forgive me for failing to send them home.”

The mist shifted and the light faded. It didn’t disappear, but rather lost all its strength. And Arthur forgot himself in remembering his vision of Lancelot with a cut throat.

“And if you cannot protect, then turn a blind eye,” he finished, feeling the words grate out of his throat. He looked about to orient himself, letting the cold anger click his observations and hunches about the Woad movements into a coherent strategy. Then he set off in the direction of what had to be the main Woad camp.


	4. Misery

Relatively speaking, they’d been treated fairly well. When the Woads had figured out that Tristan’s leg was broken, they had redone the splint. They had also refrained from further injuring him and Galahad, aside from a few vengeful cuffs and kicks. But it was obvious from the way they glowered and curled fingers towards daggers that they weren’t behaving so of their own free will. Someone had given them orders, and had done in such a way as to frighten them out of disobeying.

The Woads were camped well behind the treeline, but with several clear lines of sight to the fort. If Tristan laid on his side and stared long enough, he thought he could even make out faint movement along the tops of the walls.

Galahad was crumpled against his back and only now waking, groaning and cursing as he wriggled around. Tristan could tell when the other man realized they were bound by how Galahad stiffened. “We’re against a tree. Hands tied to one root, and I think your feet to another.”

“Great. Fucking great.” The shake in Galahad’s voice was like after they’d first been attacked. He tried to sit up, failed and cursed so loudly that the Woads detailed to watch over them started to come towards them. “My feet are tied.”

“So I guessed right.” Hopefully irritating him would give him something to focus on and calm him down. Because between the dull throb in his side and the sharper one in his leg, Tristan wasn’t capable of doing anything. If they got a chance, it’d have to be Galahad taking it.

Snarling, Galahad laid back down. After another moment of hungry eying, the Woads retreated to the other side of the clearing and squatted down. At first they’d done nothing but stare at Tristan, but eventually they had found that too unnerving and had switched to staring at the fort. Now boredom was beginning to settle in; one of them had produced what Tristan thought were sheep’s knuckles and the Woads had been dicing with them ever since.

“What time is it?” Galahad asked. He sounded a little less jumpy, but he was still moving around, testing the strength of the ropes. His knee jabbed Tristan in the thigh and jarred Tristan’s leg badly enough to make him hiss. “Sorry.”

“Stop moving. And it’s a little past midday.” It felt as if Galahad had somehow managed to twist himself onto his side. Hot breath ghosted over Tristan’s ear and part of a leg pressed against the back of his. He started to close his eyes in irritation, but that made it too easy to pretend that it was a different body so he opened them. Counted to fifteen. “Galahad. Lie down. You can’t see anything useful. The knots won’t give.”

The other man did, with an annoyed whuff and a hard thump against the trunk that, once again, drew the attention of the Woads. “Are you going to be depressing again? Because I don’t know about you, but I’m not dying where the Woads can get to my body.”

“There’s a difference between being depressing and being realistic. I’m trying to think.” The only Woads Tristan could currently see were their guards, but the whisper of leaves and the occasional drift of voices told him there were far more around the area. Whatever they were planning to do, they obviously meant to use Tristan and Galahad for it, and so it wasn’t likely that they’d be careless.

Although the fort was within sight, it might as well have been on the other side of the world. Actually, it might have been better if it had been, since then its deceptive nearness couldn’t make the inside of Tristan’s mouth sour, or put that faint agonized undertone in Galahad’s voice. If they got loose and cleared the forest, then there was still the matter of crossing the great field between it and the fort. Perhaps Galahad could do it and outrun the Woad arrows, but Tristan couldn’t. And therefore Galahad wouldn’t, as he’d made clear.

He was an idiot, even if a tiny bit of Tristan was relieved to have company and was also…grateful to be so obviously valued. That bit was also an idiot.

Since Tristan’s leg was broken, the Woads had assumed—rightly, however much he hated to admit it—that he wasn’t going anywhere. They hadn’t bound his ankles. Keeping one eye on the guards, Tristan used his arms to pull himself up into a semi-sitting position. Muscles in his back suddenly uncramped in a series of bursts that gritted his teeth together. His leg also decided to twinge a little, and his stomach alerted him to the fact that it’d been empty since yesterday. Thankfully, Galahad had had a water-flask so thirst wasn’t a problem as well.

“Tristan?” Galahad sounded oddly nervous. Almost afraid, and in a way men usually outgrew after they’d killed their first man. “How do you think—how do you think they found us?”

If Tristan had to take a guess, he’d say that one Woad that had stood by their cave for so long; perhaps the man had seen traces of them and had went off to get others to return at dawn. But he really had no firm idea, and anyway, he was trying not to think about it. Yes, it ground on him to know he’d been outdone by some Britons—even if he had had a broken leg and had been mostly relying on Galahad—but at this point, knowing what he’d done wrong didn’t help him get free. Later, maybe, it might be useful in avoiding the same kind of situation, but that was later.

For that matter, that should be what Galahad was thinking, and not whatever it was that made him look as if he’d let down someone. Except for Gawain, and to a much lesser extent, Arthur, he never showed any signs of caring about other people’s expectations of him.

Unless, Tristan suddenly thought, he was blaming himself for their capture. “I don’t think it was you,” he tried, listening carefully since he couldn’t see Galahad.

If that was it, Galahad should still be sounding defensive instead of almost…guilty. Then again, maybe he wasn’t thinking about it as being outmaneuvered by the Woads, but as reducing his chances of getting back to Gawain. Though Tristan was no longer in a position to have that worry, he still remembered how cleverly and deeply it could strike.

“So what do we do?” Galahad’s reply completely avoided the issue, but the tiny hint of relief in his voice confirmed Tristan’s guess.

Tristan kept watching the Woad guards. He still hadn’t come up with a likely way to move them both from here to the fort, but now the thought of staying behind—or being left behind—made him flinch.

When he’d first realized he couldn’t even stand, his stomach had turned icy and twisted around itself till he had almost thought he could smell blood. Back in Sarmatia, carving out a space amongst the other tribes had meant being quicker and quieter and deadlier than anyone else. In Britain, that hadn’t quite been good enough to keep up with the Woads, but Tristan had worked until he’d surpassed them—and he’d watched fall the other knights who couldn’t adapt fast enough. He had told himself that that would never be him. If he were to fall, it would have to be on a battlefield, because he’d eliminated the chances of any other time.

But he’d been proven wrong about that, once by Dinidan’s death and once by the attack yesterday. It hadn’t seemed as if there was anything left that he could do.

A forehead bumped his back. “Hey. I asked a question.”

“I heard you.” Galahad refusing to leave him, however, had forced on Tristan a night to think. And now he thought perhaps he didn’t know if there was anything left, but he was going to try anyway. “They can’t see your hands from here while I’m sitting up. Try and see if you can do something about the knots.”

“I thought you said they wouldn’t give,” Galahad muttered. Nevertheless Tristan could feel the man’s fingers fumbling at the rope a moment later.

It wasn’t the kind of company Tristan would have wished for, but it seemed it was the kind he needed. “They won’t just from pulling. Use your wits. Try something else.”

“You have any suggest—”

Shouts off in the distance, which caught the attention of the Woads. Tristan swiftly shoved himself back, ignored how that hurt his side, and propped his head up on the root. The position wasn’t comfortable in the least, but it kept them from seeing what Galahad had been doing.

But whatever was being called through the woods was so distracting that the Woads didn’t even look over. Instead they jumped to their feet and began carrying on low, anxious conversations. Their faces were angry, fearful, shocked…Tristan strained to hear.

What?

“What are they saying?” Galahad hissed. He poked at Tristan’s head with his nose.

And Tristan didn’t snap back an insult because he was too busy trying to think past his amazement. “There’s someone else in the forest, killing the Woads. They can’t track him fast enough—they just find the bodies.”

* * *

Whatever had been in that note had been terrible: Lancelot had read it once, then had crumpled it up and spent the next few moments staring over the wall, a low vitriolic stream of curses issuing from his lips. His jaw had tightened to the point that Gawain had feared it’d simply snap.

But when questioned, he’d just said it was a Woad taunt and had declined to explain further. Nor had he read it to Gawain, or let one of the few other literate knights take a look. He instead had ordered the knights to keep rotating watches, then walked off with a fast, jarring stride with which Gawain hadn’t been able to keep up.

It looked as if Lancelot had retreated to Arthur’s rooms once again, but Gawain couldn’t be certain because before they’d reached the inner fort, Bran had appeared. Lancelot had thrown the man a look that had made Bran step back a pace—and Bran didn’t look as if he lacked courage—and had simply walked around him, which left Gawain to deal with the man’s complaints, such as they were.

Bran didn’t mince words. The old man lifted his shaggy head to fix Gawain with red-rimmed, emotionless eyes and asked: “Are you the one who killed my niece?”

Gawain opened his mouth to defend himself, closed it because he couldn’t think of a way to excuse himself that didn’t taste foul, and opened it again. “Yes.”

It seemed as if Bran had been expecting a different answer, because his stare intensified and he was silent for several moments. Then he sighed and looked away. “The knight that brought in Branwen told us what happened. I wasn’t sure I believed him—since Brangaine came under my roof, she’s been nothing but friendly toward the Romans and their allies.”

“We’re not their allies,” Gawain muttered. Bile surged into the back of his throat and he was so very tempted to just loose his temper on the other man, but he willed it away. It wouldn’t bring Galahad back any faster, or make the number of Woads besieging them any less.

In fact, all it’d do was wear him out so he had something besides worry gnawing at him. And later it would probably give him nightmares and long sleepless nights staring at the sky and wondering what kind of man he’d be when he finally did receive his discharge. Decapitating the woman was going to trouble him enough without adding her uncle.

“All right, you’re not.” Bran’s tone was still neutral. All of him was neutral, from gaze to expression to body stance. From all appearances, he was taking things remarkably well.

He couldn’t be. After death, Gawain was best acquainted with grief, and his experience told him that if Bran cared a whit for his niece, then what Gawain could see was only the tip of the mountain above the thunderheads. “I…apologize that there wasn’t another way.”

As soon as he said that, suggestions popped into his mind and whispered, shouted, did everything but be ignored. He could have tried to pull her aside. He could have hit her on the head with his hilt and tried to knock her out. He could’ve done all the matter of things that normally he would have. When everything wasn’t a panicking rush of shouting above and enemies hammering at the gates, when he wasn’t already using up energy pretending there wasn’t a gaping hole at his side.

“So do I,” Bran said. When he noticed Gawain’s surprise, tired shrewdness flickered in his eyes. Maybe a trace of sympathy as well, but it was only a trace. “You killed my niece. But she put herself before your sword. Branwen says she probably died happy.”

Branwen…that must have been the other woman, the one with the scowling face. She’d been the one to shut the gates, and if Gawain remembered rightly, she was Bran’s daughter. So she’d told her father what had actually happened, and hadn’t just blamed the knights.

It was hard to think of a response that even approached suitable, but the silence demanded one. In the end, Gawain just shrugged and looked bleakly at the other man. “If you apply for compensation later, you’ll probably get something. But until we go—”

“—we’ll cooperate. I’ve no intention of losing more of my people to anyone.” Something in the sky caught Bran’s attention and he looked up. There was gray in his stubble and folds of skin around his throat, nearly hiding what was almost certainly a sword-scar. He raised his hand and rubbed round it to the back of his neck. “I don’t know if you’d understand, but I’m too old to see the virtues in fighting. I want to live, I want my village to live, and you can’t do that on a battlefield.”

“I…appreciate your understanding,” Gawain carefully replied. He wished Lancelot hadn’t gone off so precipitously; the other man knew better how to handle matters like these, even if it was obvious Lancelot hated doing it.

Then again, Lancelot’s mind was clearly elsewhere. At any other time, Gawain would be a combination of annoyed, amused and concerned about that, but right now, he couldn’t see how Lancelot was wrong.

Bran’s head came down and the veneer dropped as well to show a flash of bitterness. “Don’t mistake it for friendship. If you die somewhere else, I won’t weep.”

If Gawain were dressed as a ranker legionary, the Briton wouldn’t be nearly so insolent. Legionaries were the fist and the voice of Rome out here; they changed emperors and ruined nations and did as they and their officers pleased. Even Paullus, the best of the infantry commanders, thought nothing of leveling a town that had taken upon itself to discipline drunken soldiers of his. Whereas Arthur bent over backward to work with the civilians and trained his officers to do the same, and the most they ever got was a grudging _business_ arrangement. If it could even be called that.

“I wasn’t about to.” Whether or not Bran thought the conversation was done, Gawain certainly did. He turned on his heel and walked away.

* * *

Where Arthur had ended up was only a few hundred yards from the treeline, but far down its length from the fort. The edges of the Woad camp were probably a couple hours’ hard walking, but it took him even longer because he was doubling his tracks and making sure that it’d be awhile before anyone managed to catch up with him.

The first scout he ran into provided him with a bow and a half-full quiver of arrows, which soon went empty. He took another quiver off a downed scout and lurked about the edges of the Woad camp, trying to determine how it was arranged and where they would keep any prisoners.

Occasionally he would glimpse the garrison through the trees and then the urge to just turn his feet towards it would be so strong his eyes burned, but Arthur always forced himself away. The grass of the field separating the forest and the fort was too short for him to slip through it without being seen, and without a horse there was no way he could cross it quickly enough to evade arrows. There was also no way he could alert those inside the garrison without also giving notice to the Woads, who were far closer.

And he had knights in danger. If he left them to die, it would be not only a betrayal of everything he’d ever taught, but also of the trust they had in him. He might as well fall on his sword in that case, because he’d never be able to look the rest of his knights in the eye again, and he couldn’t lead them if he couldn’t look at them.

But all of this was merely a faint undercurrent to Arthur’s thoughts that occasionally pulsed strong enough to be felt. For the most part, he felt…quite calm. Almost frozen, except for the fact that he could move and think—in fact, his thoughts seemed to run faster and clearer than ever. He barely even noticed that he was killing people anymore.

Beyond him was a pair of Woads gracefully slipping from tree to tree. They were calling out to each other in words, not bird calls, so they thought they were safe. And according to the fragments of conversation they tossed about, they thought they were tracking him.

Not him specifically; the Woads still didn’t seem to realize who was picking off their sentries. Their speculations on the identity of the killer ranged from a knight they had missed during yesterday’s ambushes to one that had somehow sneaked out of the fort, but Arthur never heard his name. What he did hear, however, was that two knights found some distance from his group had been attacked and had escaped for most of the night, only to be taken just before dawn. They were still alive because the Woad leader wanted to try another ruse to get into the fort.

So there’d been a first ruse, Arthur noted. And the knights for whom he was looking were Tristan and Galahad.

He decided he’d heard all he needed from these two, so the only decision left to be made was whether letting them go would help disguise his presence, or would leave a serious danger at his back.

In the end, he let those two go, since it seemed as if they were headed farther out. But a few yards further he stole quietly up to a tree trunk, nocked an arrow and then aimed it high into the branches. He loosed it and quickly dropped the bow so he could catch the falling body.

The arrow had taken the Woad high in the shoulder, so he was still alive enough to muffle yells against Arthur’s hand and slam a knee into Arthur’s side. But that was all before Arthur whipped a dagger through his throat. He died messily, splattering more blood on the dried stains that caked Arthur’s neck and hands and chest.

At this point, armor was more of a hindrance than a help. Arthur only had on chainmail in the first place, and one of his sleeves had been wrenched half-off during his fall from his horse. He’d torn up the sleeve of his undershirt and had bound it up, but it still tended to slip free and jangle. In addition, the closer he got, the harder it was to work only from the ground. Armor would weigh him down once he got into the trees.

After listening for approaching Woads and hearing none, he stripped himself to the waist and wiped the blood from himself the best he could, then put his undershirt back on and strapped Excalibur on top of it. He was briefly at a loss as to what to do with his chainmail before he thought about the smell. He smelled like gore, the body at his feet like woad, and the chainmail…Geraint had once offhandedly mentioned that a good scout could smell armor.

Arthur went off a few paces and dropped his chainmail in a careless heap, as if it’d fallen by accident. Then he carefully walked back in the dents he’d made in the leaf-litter and stooped by the Woad. A few swipes garnered him enough woad to cover his neck and face; he still smelled of those that he’d killed, but less strongly now.

Then he slipped further into the Woad camp. In the distance someone was running, and it sounded as if he were coming Arthur’s way, so Arthur quickly scaled a tree and tucked himself into the branches.

The Woad jogged a little past Arthur’s tree and then stopped, bent over with one hand against a nearby trunk, to catch his breath. He had come from the direction of a scout Arthur had killed, and considering the jerky way he kept glancing about, it seemed likely that that was the news he carried. Good. If they thought Arthur was over there, they’d concentrate even less on this direction.

The branch beneath Arthur’s left foot gave. Not enough to make a sound, but enough for him to feel the shift. His grip on the other branches started to tighten, but he stopped for fear of shaking the leaves. Instead he tried to slowly ease his weight onto his other foot, but he felt the strain in that one increase too fast and he froze.

Below, the Woad seemed to have finished his rest and was slowly straightening.

Hurry, Arthur silently snarled. Hurry up and tell your leader that you’ve dead men. Stop loitering; the news will only get worse. You’ve made the news worse for me, so I return the favor.

A tiny part of him said he sounded like Lancelot. Another tiny part corrected that, because Lancelot’s rage always burned hot and right now Arthur was very, very cold. If that Woad didn’t move, he was going to get a taste of the part of it that was strapped to Arthur’s back.

The Woad finally started off again. Arthur didn’t feel relieved so much as satisfied, for now he could move on. He had to hurry himself, because the likeliest time for the Woads to make their next try was in the evening, when another long, sleepless, frightening night was staring the knights in the face. So Arthur had to find Tristan and Galahad before that happened, and the sun was already peaking.

He quietly dropped to the ground; the branches that had supported his feet now groaned, but there was no one to hear their warnings except him and he didn’t care.

A breeze sprang up, too light and casual. It grated his nerves with its incongruity—but then it brought good news and Arthur almost smiled.

Horses. He smelled living horseflesh.

* * *

Lancelot slumped in Arthur’s chair and let his fingers slowly unlock from their first so the little scrap was visible. He raised his other hand and stabbed a finger at the ball. Forced himself to unroll it and read the message again.

The Latin was bad, but there was no mistaking what it said. The Woads had two knights alive, and they wanted to talk about trading terms.

He crushed the piece of parchment and flicked it onto Arthur’s desk. A lie if Lancelot ever heard one. The knights didn’t have anything to trade except the villagers and the fort. Maybe the villagers housed some more Woad sympathizers, but the Woads weren’t known for counting the cost of their sacrifices, and anyway the villagers would have more chances to do damage inside than out. Though if any of Bran’s folk tried anything, there were knights watching them, Lancelot had no problem with hanging the bodies over the wall for the Woads to see. An eye for an eye…one of the few Biblical phrases that had made much sense to him.

Predictably, it was one of the phrases that troubled Arthur the most. He could spend hours and hours pulling out phrases from other parts of the Bible that contradicted it, he could discuss the theological and presumed historical arguments against it, and—Lancelot would gladly throw open the damned gates if he could have even that again. He needed to stop thinking along that line.

The fort, on the other hand, was definitely valuable. It had a year-round reliable source of water and it had been newly repaired under Lancelot’s own eye, so he knew how strong it was. If the Woads got it, then they would have a foothold _behind_ the wall, in supposedly secure territory. Aside from the sheer size of the campaign necessary to dislodge them, it’d be devastating for morale.

Therefore the only sensible demand the Woads could make was for a full withdrawal from the fort. They would probably offer safe passage, and it’d be a lie.

Even if it wasn’t, they would still be dead. The Romans might decimate the Sarmatians for their apparent cowardice, but Lancelot would’ve been in his grave before then. Arthur not only wouldn’t countenance such a dereliction of duty, but he’d also take full responsibility, since in his mind he should have somehow been able to get there in time and stop it from happening. Even though that would require wings, at the least. He would probably offer to execute himself, and Lancelot refused to follow any other officer.

It was a trick and the Woads were going to pull it, and damned if Lancelot saw how he could hold the knights back from falling for it. He knew very well what his reputation was among the others, and he knew very well how far they would follow _him_. It’d been hard enough to persuade Gawain to back down before, and that was when they didn’t even know where Galahad was. If the Woads dragged Galahad up to the wall and Gawain saw him…even Arthur’s God probably didn’t know what Gawain might do.

When Lancelot had read the words for the first time, for a long, long moment he had thought…but no, the Woads would never offer to trade Arthur. He was too good at killing them. He had Briton blood in him, so his value as Roman propaganda to persuade the other Britons to cooperate also was too high.

Then the other one was probably Tristan. Lancelot slouched further in the chair and let his head fall back so he could stare at the ceiling. As impossible as it seemed, Tristan was the only other knight unaccounted for…it must have been horrific in the forest if he’d been taken. The little that Lancelot knew of him all pointed towards extreme efficiency under conditions that would daunt another man.

Maybe it was a bluff. The Woads had never specified names—they’d just said two and then they had added a brief description of the knights’ swords, which details their scouts could’ve gotten before the ambush, or just from the sword without necessarily having a knight attached to it. After all, they had put up Galahad’s saddle, but they’d waited till now, after Brangaine’s failed treachery, to make this offer.

But could Lancelot really chance disbelief? If the Woads did indeed have Tristan and Galahad…then it might be worse to let them tell Gawain. If he told the other man, then he would have a little time to talk Gawain into…into doing what? Sitting still? Watching from the ramparts as someone cut off Galahad’s head?

“Damn everything.” Lancelot closed his eyes. There was so much to consider and weigh and so many unknown but deadly important facts, and all of it was cramming into his skull, pressing against the backs of his eyes till they ached. They wanted to burst, and he almost wished they would. Leave him in the darkness where he could sleep without a single worry.

He absently turned his head and opened his eyes to look at the bed, which was probably the worst thing he could have done. Because then he could see the rumpled sheets and the slight impress in the mattress left over from yesterday morning—he hadn’t slept a moment since—and he could remember how light and lazy and achingly near-perfect it had been. It could very well have been the last time, and he hadn’t—of course he hadn’t known. He couldn’t have. But nevertheless the curves and folds of the blankets reproached his careless attitude; he should know better by now than to take even a simple breath for granted.

Someone knocked on the door. “Lancelot?” Gawain called.

Fuck.

Lancelot sat up and pressed his hands against his face, trying to brace himself for what was to come. Then he waved in the other man. “Shut the door. Sit down.” When Gawain did, Lancelot moved to get between Gawain and the door. “That message from the Woads—they say they’ve got two knights. They want to trade them.”

Gawain had been slumping with fatigue, but now his head threw up and back, his body leaned forward and his hands trembled with too much energy. “Who?”

“They don’t say by name, but they mentioned a few details from Galahad’s sword, and they said the other knight’s sword was curved, so I think—”

“Tristan. Has to be. Has to—they’ve got them. Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.” On the last repetition, Gawain jumped to his feet and paced around the room before coming to stop in front of Lancelot. He drew in a breath, hesitated, and then asked. “Arthur?”

The words hurt to curl tongue and lips around. “No word.” Now it was Lancelot’s turn to hesitate. He quietly stepped back to Arthur’s desk and laid his hand on top so it covered a heavy paperweight. “They didn’t say for what, but you can guess what they’d ask for. Ceding the fort.”

Apparently Gawain hadn’t even thought about it till Lancelot mentioned it, for the other man just stared. His eyes were wide enough for Lancelot to see the moment when Gawain’s mind belatedly dragged the pieces together. And then there was anger. “I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them just for making me look at this as a choice.”

“It’s not a choice. We can’t let them have it.” Lancelot kept his eyes on Gawain’s, but with his peripheral vision he tracked Gawain’s hands. He didn’t want to do it, but if he had to, he would knock out the other man and lock him in the room.

Yesterday he’d touted the lock as such an advantage. It still was, but the context had twisted about so sharply that Lancelot could almost feel himself bleeding.

Gawain didn’t reply, but instead spun on his heel and stomped a few steps. He stopped and stared at the wall while his fists beat hard against his legs. “Did they say how we were negotiating? Because if they bring Galahad out one step onto the field—”

“Sadly, they’re not that stupid. They’re sending a man up to the gate at sundown; he will have tokens to prove they’ve got the knights and he’ll…” It was a struggle not to snarl every word. “He’ll ‘set terms,’ according to their message.”

At first Gawain’s shoulders only twitched once or twice. Then they went violently up and down, and _then_ they were heaving uncontrollably as he hissed breath between his teeth. He abruptly threw himself forward and grabbed the edge of the bedframe, hunching over it as he fought for control.

For as long as Lancelot had known him, Gawain had been easygoing, patient, willing to shoulder burdens without complaint. He rarely ever was angry enough to raise his voice—and now rage was shaking him so hard that his teeth were clicking together. As numb as Lancelot had become, he was still shocked.

“We can’t do anything till the messenger shows up,” Lancelot said, more quickly and quietly than he’d intended to. But he was genuinely taken aback at Gawain’s reaction and he was suddenly doubting his ability to cope with the other man, should Gawain’s temper suddenly snap. “After we talk to him, we’ll know where things stand.”

“So till sundown.” Each word was jagged as broken glass.

Gawain stayed bent over for another few seething breaths. Then he straightened up and went out of the room without looking at Lancelot.

Lancelot let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Before he could catch himself, _his_ temper whipped out and his knuckles exploded.

On the wall before him was a faint red streak. He looked at it, then at the bloody back of his hand. And he let the stones stay stained, and his hand unbandaged.

* * *

The only meal the Woads provided was some disgusting soup, which nevertheless Galahad’s stomach eagerly accepted. Stupid thing even growled for more after the bowl was taken away. The Woad that had brought the food sneered at him, said something nasty and kicked dirt in his face before going to the other side of the clearing. Galahad spat and rubbed his face against his arms. “What’d they say?”

“If you learned more Briton, you wouldn’t have to keep asking me,” Tristan muttered. He bent down to wipe his mouth on his hands, then squinted at the knots he’d hastily redone. A glance at the Woads, who were back to staring nervously at the trees and jumping every time there was a birdcall, and then he twisted one loop. Parts of the knots came free: the result of hours of picking at the rope. “It’ll just upset you to know and you’ll be distracted.”

He was right, but Galahad still wanted to know. Damned Woads already had him upset, so what was the point in pretending they weren’t being utter bastards?

The difficulty wasn’t in the knots themselves so much as in how they were placed; the Woads knew what they were doing and put them where Tristan couldn’t reach and where Galahad had to wrench himself around to get his fingers on them. The position was so strained he couldn’t hold it for more than a few heartbeats at a time, and he couldn’t twist himself around too often because then the Woads might notice him gasping to death. So it’d been slow going.

“Whatever they want with us, it’ll probably happen at sunset.” A trace of anxiety wove through Tristan’s voice.

The angle of the light told Galahad that wasn’t more than a half-hour away. He grunted and managed to loosen a loop just as his muscles told him no more. Dropping back bumped his spine against the tree, which had long ceased being an irritation and was now just more pain. “Great. How’s it look?”

“A little more and your hands should be free.” Tristan slowly eased himself down on his stomach. The side of his mouth twitched in a grimace. “Don’t start yet. I’m going to turn over.”

“Your side?” If it’d started bleeding…but no, Tristan should be paler in that case. More likely was that he was cramping; his current position did let him keep an eye on the Woads, but it also forced him to put some weight on the wound. Galahad pressed himself as far back as he could to make room for the other man.

Tristan gave a curt nod. His mouth was pressed so tightly together that the skin around it was white as snow, but he didn’t stop moving until he’d flipped onto his back. Lying like that meant his arms were forced above his head and thus blocked his vision, so after resting a moment, he scooted up to prop his head against a root. His hands were still pressing against his cheek, but when asked, he said he could see the Woads fine and he told Galahad to get working.

“I am, I am. See if I ever inquire after your health again.” Of course, Galahad wasn’t being serious. And normally Tristan wouldn’t even react to something like that. But this time Tristan went a little stiff and glanced at Galahad. Too quickly for the look to be interpreted, but just the fact that Tristan had bothered to look over was curious.

Galahad hooked his finger through the loop he’d made on the last try and yanked it free. To his immense gratification, a whole knot suddenly unraveled. Two left.

He slid back and rested, grinning to himself. Then he noticed something and rolled his eyes. “All right, what? You’ve been twitching on and off ever since…am I jarring you too much? Do I smell? What?”

The little sound Tristan made said Galahad was wasting time and was acting like an idiot. But the way he tensed up said something else.

“Well, I’m very sorry, but in case you haven’t noticed, I can’t move away from you. Once we’re free, you can go as far as you want from me, but till then, you’ll just have to put up with it.” And they’d almost been getting along, too. Gawain would’ve been proud. He was always telling Galahad how he just needed to get to know Tristan better, and then he’d see the man wasn’t such a bad friend to have…well, Galahad had thought he had begun to see, but clearly not. “Don’t like you, but I’m not that rude about it.”

“That’s the problem.” Tristan spoke so quietly that Galahad thought he’d imagined it. But then the other man looked at him—Tristan’s expression was some cousin to dismay—and Galahad realized _Tristan_ hadn’t even realized he’d been talking aloud.

Galahad watched Tristan for a long time, waiting for an explanation. When it became obvious he wasn’t going to get one, he snorted and turned back to the knots. “Not only do you not make sense, but you’re also an ungrateful bastard.”

“Thank you. For earlier.”

When Galahad looked over, certain that it was just another sarcastic retort, Tristan wasn’t looking at him anymore. Nor was he looking at the Woads, but instead he was staring at his broken leg. “I’m not teasing you,” Tristan softly said.

Another knot unraveled between Galahad’s fingers before he decided how to respond. “You’re welcome.”

“Gawain’s going to be a very happy man.” Tristan didn’t sound sarcastic. More like envious, but without the bite. There was something like regret softening his tone.

“Fuck, I’ll be a happy man. Worst two days of my life, and I had to spend them with you.” Galahad let himself snicker a little. “ _That_ would be teasing.”

For that, he received an elbow in the nose. “Get back to the knots,” Tristan snapped. But a faint smile danced around his mouth.

* * *

“I supported your story. I made you knights look _good_ ,” Branwen spat. She pushed herself further into the room and dropped onto Dagonet’s cot. Her crutch bounced off his foot and clattered to the floor. “I saved your skins.”

“I thank you for that.” He finished washing the soapy traces and newly-cut hairs off of his face. Then he walked the basin over to the window, checked for anyone below, and tipped out its contents when he saw that there was no one.

The puffy black shadows beneath Branwen’s eyes and the fine red lines spiderwebbing them said she’d been crying till very recently, but now there was no sign of any moisture or anything soft in her face. She glared at Dagonet as he put the basin back, as he sat down on the bed beside her and unlaced his boots. He had an hour before he had to go out again, and he thought it’d best be spent sleeping. Lack of rest ate at men, thinned their nerves and increased their regrets when the sun rose on another day. All he had to do to confirm that was look at Lancelot or Gawain.

“I’m supposed to thank you for saving my life. But what I really want to know is how can you be so calm? Are you just dense? Do you understand anything that’s happened, that is happening?” She hooked her fingers into his bicep and dug until he could feel a bruise welling up.

Dagonet preferred not to strike out except when he had to, but this he wouldn’t take. He jerked away his arm. “I’m alive and in Britain when I’d rather be in Sarmatia. You’re alive and here when you’d rather be dead because then you wouldn’t feel as if you owe me a debt. We’re living in a war and nothing makes sense.”

“That made sense.” And she sounded as if she wanted to hurt him for it. Branwen wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the floor.

He twisted his legs behind her and laid down. Come sunset, he had a feeling that things were going to get worse again, and he wanted to be ready if that feeling was right.

“I didn’t even like her that much. She was pretty and laughing and she always smiled when she told me to shut up. And my father would let her, because she was so handy to have around when the Romans came demanding something.” After she’d finished speaking, Branwen raised her head and looked curiously about the empty barracks. 

The other knights were busy eating, or manning the walls—Dagonet would have been there if Geraint hadn’t spotted him and ordered him off. Apparently Arthur had left a standing order about how many consecutive shifts a knight could take, and so far neither Gawain nor Lancelot had countermanded it.

“What happened to her parents?” Dagonet asked.

The bed dipped as Branwen shrugged. “Killed in a raid. They were traders, traveling under Roman protection when Woads raided their wagon train. Brangaine saw all of it…I always thought she blamed the Woads…”

A hand touched Dagonet’s shin. It was large for a woman, and he knew it was scarred and callused and hardened by years of daily labor.

“My father cried when I told him how close I came to dying. First time in years he’s acted fond of me.” Branwen’s voice was wondering, soft and thready like that of a child’s. She moved her hand up Dagonet’s leg, then withdrew it. “I’m not going to miss you, or what you bring—you did bring it, just by virtue of what you do,” she said with sudden ferocity. “Not when you go.”

Then she turned around and leaned down to kiss him. Hard, fast, uncaring of what her teeth caught. He lifted hands to push her away and she grabbed them and squeezed, so he pulled her to him. They rolled over and he was as careful as he could of the bulky bandage on her leg, but she was careless as she tugged down his trousers and slid her hands beneath his clothes.

It wasn’t gentle or considerate. Her legs were flashes of white, shocking in comparison to her sunbrowned feet and hands, and her breasts remained masked softnesses, slight roundings that he stroked and pressed his mouth to through her dress. She cupped his head and licked at his markings while his hands dove into her skirts and pulled them up, but when he started to push them past her waist, she seized his wrist to make him stop.

She was tight and dry, so dry that he almost thought he’d tear her, but she pulled and he pushed in his prick and when she arched it wasn’t in pain. In a little bit some slickness worked up between them and then he gave in to her yanking. The cot rattled and thumped, and once he tore his shoulder from her mouth and kissed her afterward and tasted blood there. But she hooked her good leg around him and twisted him down so he would have to break her to free himself. And he wouldn’t do that.

When Branwen came, she said his name. Accented the wrong syllables and dragged it out in the wrong places, but it was still the sweetest thing he’d ever heard her say. Then she curled around him and held him while he muffled his cries in her hair.

She let him hold her for a few long breathes before pushing away. He tried to help pull her dress back down, but she irritably shoved back his hands and insisted on doing it herself. So he saw to his clothing, and left her alone.

“There won’t be anything of this,” she told him. “I’ll see to that. I don’t want any of this to remain here.”

Dagonet nodded and lifted a hand to her hair. For a moment, he thought she was going to leap away, but she held herself in place. Very carefully, he pulled out a few hairs, which he held up to the light so the drab brown suddenly gleamed with blues, greens and red. “Beautiful.”

Branwen laughed at him.

“I like your laugh better than I did Brangaine’s,” he told her. And he looked at her until he saw that she believed him.

She tensed on the edge of the bed, a startled hawk ready to flee. Then she grabbed his shoulders and pressed her face into his neck. “Don’t _die_ here,” she hissed.

A moment later, she was gone, and Dagonet was carefully tucking the hairs into his saddlebag. He paused with his hand on the flap, then shook himself and laid back on the bed.

Someone shook him awake an hour later, and he opened his eyes to see Bors’ speculative face. The other man gave an exaggerated sniff. “Found some company, did you?”

“Of a kind,” Dagonet agreed, sitting up. “What are we doing?”

Instead of answering him, Bors narrowed his eyes and scrutinized Dagonet the same way he would one of his sons when trying to figure out which had just buffeted him in the back. Then Bors smiled, but it was a strangely sad one. “You know, I keep hoping you’ll get a girl you deserve. Everyone needs a little warmth at night. And I don’t mean fires, either.”

“I know.” On an impulse, Dagonet grabbed Bors’ forearm and squeezed it; the other man quickly caught on and did the same.

Then Bors chuckled deep in his gut and pulled Dagonet to his feet. “Well, you’re young yet. Plenty of time to be looking about. Speaking of, we’re wanted on the walls. Come on.”

* * *

After years of shepherding young Sarmatians, stealing a few horses was simple. Leading them to a good hiding place was much more difficult and took Arthur nearly the rest of the time he had left. He stared at the angle of the sun, then looked out at the field beyond the trees and tried to plot out the quickest way to locate his knights in the few moments he had left.

There was a dip in the treeline. Arthur was on one side of it, and he could easily see the other, where there were bodies hanging from trees. His vision flicked red: they _dared_.

And then it went grey: that was where they’d bring Tristan and Galahad when they used them, so the two knights couldn’t be far away. That was where Arthur was going.

He took the horses with him as close as he dared, but when the encounters with Woads became too numerous, he secreted the horses—more like ponies compared to the chargers Arthur was used to—in a copse and continued on, praying that no one would find them.

Soon he had to retreat to the trees because there were so many Woads passing to and fro on the ground. Arthur hadn’t climbed trees since he was very young, before he’d learned to hate the Woads…before he’d even really known who they were. He remembered his father railing a few times against the bastards that kept him from home, but his mother was always shushing Uther and clapping her hands over Arthur’s ears. As far as he recalled, she’d never expressed an opinion on the presence of the Romans. After his father had been killed, she had gone cold and silent whenever Uther’s name was mentioned, but she said nothing. When she’d told Arthur, she had merely said that his father had been killed in a battle. It had been Gorlois, nearly ten years later when she was dead and Arthur had just donned a knight’s armor, who had finally told him the rest of it.

Ever since then Arthur had considered himself a cavalryman. He rode when he could, walked when he had to, and if he looked at the trees, it was almost always because he feared an attack. And now he was the attack.

It didn’t feel odd to be appropriating his enemies’ strategies, for they were part of his heritage as well. In fact, it was the ease with which he was accustoming himself to them that vaguely rippled in the recesses of his mind.

Below, the Woads were speaking of those that he’d killed, of some failed attempt to coordinate with a spy within the fortress. Some of them grumbled about how badly their plans had failed, about a knight that had run the Woad lines and gotten through to another garrison. Most were grimly resigned to salvaging what they could of their expedition; they had no choice, considering how far behind the Wall they were. If they lost here, there was little chance that they could retreat. Too many garrisons and other detachments of Roman forces stood between them and friendly territory.

The name ‘Merlin’ was mentioned. Arthur’s blood seethed and hot acid boiled up in the back of his throat, but he made himself hold still and continue to listen.

Merlin had been here, but he’d since left to go oversee some other activity. Fortunate for him in that he’d continue to live, but unfortunate in that now Arthur had an _excellent_ reason to not stop at merely extricating himself and his knights from the situation. His anger hadn’t been soothed by the dead Woads he’d left on his way here, and he very much doubted that it would be by anything short of completely breaking the Woad force. He would _not_ see his knights betrayed like this again. On the battlefield, anything was expected and rightly so, but this wasn’t one.

A man passed beneath Arthur’s tree, arms full of swords that Arthur recognized. As soon as the Woad was out of hearing distance, Arthur let himself down from the tree and headed in the direction from whence the Woad had come. He had to claw into another tree only yards later, but by then he’d gone far enough. Looking down on the ground showed him Tristan and Galahad lying against a tree trunk; Galahad was bent over something while Tristan was staring intently across the clearing, probably at guards. Arthur turned, careful not to rattle the branches, to see where the Woads were.

And then someone exclaimed in surprise just beneath his tree. His instincts made him kick off the branches and drop straight down.

* * *

“Fuck!” Galahad jerked backwards. There was a sudden, agonizing pain around his wrists, but almost immediately it disappeared and he was left to stare in complete shock at the newly-crushed Briton.

Across the way, the Woads jumped to their feet and opened their mouths. Arrows appeared in them. It was like a grotesque parody of baby birds begging for food, only these fledgings had just been fed for the last time and that had been the fastest Galahad had ever seen a man shoot.

Tristan was frozen as well. It made Galahad feel a lot better about himself—especially when he finally noticed that his flinch had ripped free the last knot and his hands were loose. He blinked, remembered why that was good and scrambled back to deal with his feet, only to nearly get his fingers cut off when Arthur’s sword flashed down. “Fuck!”

“What injuries?” Arthur went from Galahad’s to Tristan’s bonds in one smooth motion.

“His leg’s broken, side’s cut—I’m fine, more or less.” Galahad belatedly got moving and reached for the bow Arthur had tossed aside, but the other man stopped him.

Shaking his head, Arthur got a hand under Tristan’s arm and started pulling him up. “I used up all the arrows and there’s no time to get more. Come on—I’ve horses.”

“Horses?” Tristan said, still looking stunned. Then he cocked his head, listening, and _then_ he shook off his surprise. He pushed from Arthur and grabbed Galahad, nearly sending them both off-balance. When Galahad protested, Tristan looked at him like he didn’t have a single sensible thought in his head. “Arthur needs his hands free, since he’s got his sword.”

“Fine, fine, I’m used to carrying you anyway.” They were already moving, shuffling as fast as they could. Hopefully the horses weren’t too far, because the noise had alerted the other Woads and there were too fucking many of them. And Galahad didn’t have a single weapon on him.

Arthur jogged ahead of them, pushing branches out of the way. Once he wheeled around and dragged them to the side, then disappeared around a tree. There was a scream and then he came running back, shoving at Galahad and then taking Tristan’s other arm to help them go faster. Excalibur’s whole length was dull brown with a few new streaks of red.

“Where have you been?” Galahad panted, struggling to keep up and to keep from jolting Tristan’s leg too badly. Though Tristan didn’t make a sound of complaint, his face went whiter and whiter, and finally Galahad just told his body to pretend fatigue didn’t exist. He skidded to a stop, dropped and got Tristan over his shoulder.

“Killing.” It was a succinct, cold answer that didn’t sound like Arthur at all. But when he turned around to see why Galahad had stopped for a moment, the concern in his eyes was familiar as the night sky.

No time to think on that; now the Woads weren’t bothering to hide their approach, were merely hurrying as fast as they could to cut off the three of them, and Galahad could hear the rattle of arrows in quivers. He could also smell horses, and the scent was so damned welcome he would have cried if he hadn’t been so worried about arrows in the back.

A few more steps and there they were: shaggy small native beasts, but they were horses and they were a way across the field. Galahad halted beside one and threw Tristan up into the saddle. Winced because that was going to be excruciating on the other man’s injuries, but they couldn’t stop for gentleness. Anyway, Tristan didn’t fall back off, so that meant he was still conscious.

When Galahad scrambled on to his own horse, Arthur had already mounted and had spun about to cut down a spear-wielding Woad. The first arrows were hissing down about them, but Arthur actually rode _towards_ them. And towards a Woad with an upraised sword, but still—“Arthur!”

“What is he—” Tristan started to jerk around his horse.

Two of them going back into the Woad camp was even worse. Galahad stretched over and slapped the flank of Tristan’s horse to get it going, then yelled one last time. “Arthur! We’re on!”

Thankfully, the message got through and Arthur went galloping in the right direction; Galahad whooshed a relieved breath out his mouth and kicked his heels into the side of his horse. The arrows and the shouting had already made it skittish and so it took off as if he’d lighted a fire beneath its tail. He pressed himself as closely as he could to the horse’s neck and urged it on.

They flew across the field, arrows and spears chasing them all the way. It sounded as if some of the Woads even came out into the grass, but ahead the gates of the fort were opening—so fucking slowly, like they had honey in their gears—and there were dark shapes pouring out. Gawain, Galahad thought, and he grinned and got hairs from the horse’s mane stuck in his teeth. But he didn’t care, because he could hear the sounds of the Woads dying away and now he could make out the faces of knights riding towards them.

He could see Gawain.

Then his shoulder screamed. Galahad sucked in a breath and felt the pain race down his back, hot and sticky and…no, that was his blood. He knotted his fingers around the crude saddle-horn and held on, but his grip was slipping the more he tightened it. Damn it. Damn Woads. Damn it, _not_ here—

\--something caught his arm and shoved him back in the saddle. “Count to five!” Tristan shouted.

Which made no sense, but Galahad’s mind still took it as an order. He got to three fine, but it was a struggle to pull up four because he wanted to pass out.

No. Not till…till…five…

…and Gawain’s voice wrapped around him, and Galahad could fling out an arm to catch the hand he knew was reaching for him, and then he could let the other man gallop them the rest of the way.


	5. Relief

The Woad came on horseback, an unspoken sneer at the knights. He dismounted by the gates and sent a contemptuous look upwards, scanning the ramparts for the leaders.

Lancelot couldn’t keep his hands from curling and uncurling, itching for swords, so he held them out of sight as he leaned over. Beside him, Gawain stood with iron face and cold eyes and a tension that implied the slightest wrong move would snap his control.

“Are you the commander now?” the Woad called up. His eyes flicked towards the treeline where Arthur’s red cloak was a tiny red splash, flapping in the wind.

“You can speak to me as such,” Lancelot made himself say. The words tasted like ashes. He told himself for the last time that it was only a temporary situation, that he wasn’t admitting a single thing by saying it. That he wasn’t presuming anything.

Behind and below, Geraint and picked knights from his troop stood at the ready by their horses, fully armored and prepared to try a rush if Lancelot gave the signal. That had been the compromise Lancelot had made with Gawain—a kind of sop, except Gawain wasn’t some politician that had to be kept happy, but a well-liked, well-trained knight who could wreck an immense amount of damage if he ever wanted to. He could divide the knights when they most needed to stand together.

It was bad enough dealing with the Woads without also having to cast fellow knights as possible opponents. If Lancelot ever got his hands on the mind that had set this whole mess in motion, he was going to take his time ripping it into gory little bits.

The Woad took a longer look at him, then nodded. He reached behind him, scornfully ignoring the way the knights on the wall instantly aimed arrows at him, and pulled out a bulky bundle, which he proceeded to unwrap with great flair. First the string. Then the cloth. Then the first sword.

“Tristan’s.” Gawain put his hands against the top of the wall and pressed down till he squeezed them white. His eyes started to close, but then he stiffened and opened them.

He knew what was coming. So did Lancelot. And yet, when the Woad lifted the second sword, Gawain’s shock was still a palpable thing. His shoulders bunched so tightly that they seemed about to burst through his clothing and the hiss of his breath cut like a razor.

For his own part, Lancelot was suddenly having trouble recalling how to breathe. He was staring at the Woad so hard that the tiniest details not only were visible, but also leaped out at him. A drop of sweat on the man’s temple was a huge trembling clear globe ready to pop in Lancelot’s eye. The movement of the Woad as he dismounted and laid his tokens on the ground assaulted Lancelot’s face with its apparent suddenness, though a moment later Lancelot recognized that the Woad was actually moving twice as slowly as a regular pace.

It took a moment for the gestures to sink in, and then Lancelot’s vision whiplashed back to its normal state. He flinched, torn between gratitude and raw uncertainty.

Still no sign of Arthur. The Woad wasn’t showing Excalibur.

“These are our terms: you will open the gates and you won’t interfere with anything we do to the villagers currently under your protection. You will leave us your swords and ride back to your garrison.” When he finished, the Woad stepped back to lay a hand on the withers of his horse. Then he watched and waited.

“Might as well ask us to cut our own throats,” Lancelot muttered. Those weren’t terms so much as boundaries entrapping them to one and only one course of action, which didn’t favor them in the least.

Gawain didn’t answer. His head was bowed, but Lancelot could still see how it was furrowed with thought, as if the other man were actually, seriously considering the proposition. Which was insane—he had to understand that the Woads would kill them as soon as they disarmed themselves.

But did he care?

Perhaps Lancelot shouldn’t have hesitated back in Arthur’s rooms. No, he definitely shouldn’t have had. It had been a wrong move to let the other man up here, and in a moment Lancelot would have to watch exactly how wrong it was destroy his tenuous grip on the knights. And then it’d be chaos and the Woads would have been lying in wait for just such a chance, and Arthur would have no safe haven to make it back to—

\--there was a commotion at the edge of the forest. Forgetting the Woad, Lancelot threw himself forward and got a knee up on the stones so he could lean farther. He could feel his balance straining to keep him on the wall, but he stressed it even more because there were _three_ horsemen racing across the field.

The wind ripping past him was Gawain going for the stairs. And Lancelot was right behind him, nearly tumbling over his own feet and only being saving because Gawain was likewise stumbling and so they barely avoided tripping each other. Geraint shouted for the news, which gave Gawain enough time to seize a horse from one of Geraint’s knights.

“Open the gates!” Lancelot snapped. He grabbed a set of reins and snarled when he saw that it still had another pair of hands holding them. The other knight’s eyes went wide and the man leaped back. “Knights coming up! Archers—cover fire! And keep that damned messenger from—”

Someone slammed into the gate lever and sent the gears spinning so the heavy doors fairly flew open. Through them Lancelot could see an arrow knocking the Woad off his saddle—the man had tried to gallop off and failed. It was only his shoulder, so he would keep.

By the time they were outside, the three horsemen were nearly halfway across the field.

_Arthur_.

The air inside Lancelot’s chest squeezed, gelled and clogged his throat. He fought it, fought till it burst out so hard that he saw black spots. Then: “Damn it, formation! Give them cover!”

Slowly, too slowly, the knights did as he’d ordered them. All except Gawain, who had loosed the pressure of two horrific days and who was letting it drive him forward. He got to Tristan and Galahad just as Galahad, an arrow sticking from his shoulderblade, slumped forward in the saddle. Gawain wheeled so his horse’s hooves struck up clods of dirt bigger than a man’s fist and caught Galahad’s outflung arm, then gathered in close so he could steer both their horses. His face as it flashed by Lancelot was an agony to see, relief and fresh fear all lashed together.

But then Gawain was gone, galloping for the fort, and Geraint was turning to give the same support to Tristan who also seemed to be fainting, and there was Arthur. Eyes dark and mad and so very cold and not looking at Lancelot. Instead they were looking at the—damn him, but the Woad messenger had hung on and not fallen completely out of the saddle.

Arthur thundered past, Excalibur raised high in the air. The Woad saw something in Arthur’s face that made him freeze, and then his body had been slashed out of the saddle and Arthur was spinning about. Lancelot met his gaze and felt the air turn to daggers.

Then Arthur’s eyes cleared. His face cracked from that terrifying expression to a relief so profound that for a moment, it drowned out the rest of the world.

He was alive.

* * *

Arthur wanted to cry, to laugh, to scream. But he did none of those things, because suddenly there were shouts of his men crashing about him, there were the Woads shrieking their dismay from the woods, and there were so many thoughts crowding into his head. Things that he needed to do, to see to. Things that he wanted to do, but couldn’t.

His arm was aching—he lowered Excalibur and wheeled about to head into the fort. A heartbeat later, Lancelot had come up beside him; the other man lifted his hand so it grazed over Arthur’s arm and passed him to enter first. Light as the touch seemed to be, in reality it had to be the heaviest thing on earth because it carried everything that they didn’t have the time or the privacy to say.

As soon as Arthur was inside, he was surrounded by faces half-hysterical with relief, with worry. A babble of questions rose up about where he’d been, what had happened. He gave a terse explanation before he dismounted—Jols came running up, clucked at the size of the horse Arthur had had to use, and went off again—and then he called for quiet. Asked for what had happened _here_ while he’d been gone.

“Long story. I’ll tell it while you wash off your face—you look like a fucking Woad, and after all this trouble, it’d be stupid for you to get shot by accident.” The laughter of the knights was the loosening of a dangerously taut bowstring; Lancelot shoved his way through it and took Arthur’s elbow in a grip that looked casual but was in fact hard enough to numb the flesh beneath it. He glowered about the rest of the knights. “Get back to your posts. Same rotation as last night—Geraint, you’ve got comm—fuck.”

“Geraint, take command until one of us gets back. Everyone, I thank you for your loyalty while I was missing,” Arthur finished, pretending the slip hadn’t happened. He could barely hear himself speak for the rush of blood in his ears. Now that he was on the ground and not constantly moving, all the aches and the fatigue of the past few days came roaring into him. The feel of Lancelot’s hand on his arm was the only anchor he had, and it was dragging on him so hard that at any moment he was liable to fall.

He and Lancelot started off at a normal pace in a silent agreement to act as calmly as possible, but as soon as they were out of sight, Arthur found himself hurrying, and Lancelot matched him instead of trying to slow him down. By the time they were in the hallways of the inner fort, they were nearly running.

Lancelot got to the door first and opened it so roughly that it banged off the wall and nearly caught Arthur as he skidded inside. The other man still had a hand on his arm, and Lancelot used that to spin them around. Arthur closed the door by slamming Lancelot up against it, mouth snatching savagely at Lancelot’s and hands feverishly sliding over shoulders, back, thighs. He tasted blood in Lancelot’s moan. It was too fresh.

But when he tried to back away, Lancelot locked hands behind Arthur’s neck and held them together, breath to breath. “I didn’t know where you were,” he whispered.

“All I knew was killing.” Arthur pressed his forehead against Lancelot’s. His hands settled just above Lancelot’s hipbones and kneaded the flesh there, seeking reassurance and grounding. “That’s all I thought about. I wanted to kill them and I wanted a reason for it—I didn’t kill for a reason. I was a Woad—I crawled in the trees and killed by stealth and I liked the blood.”

Nails dug into the back of Arthur’s neck, then relaxed. After a moment, Lancelot twisted his head just enough for him to stare at Arthur. “You’re the son of a Sarmatian and of a Briton and you’re a damned Roman and _I don’t care_.” His gaze clutched Arthur in a grip like steel and wouldn’t let Arthur look away as Lancelot swiped a finger over Arthur’s cheek, neck. He showed Arthur the thick layer of woad and sweat and dried blood he’d gathered on it, then put his finger in his mouth and sucked it clean. “Damn you, I don’t care. I don’t care what you are as long as you’re alive and you’re--”

The gesture knocked all the breath out of Arthur, and the words that came after it made every previous injury he’d ever received seem like the barest graze. He stopped Lancelot’s mouth, drank in air and tasted himself. Tasted bitterness and death and his kills and his guilt, and took it back because he couldn’t bear for the other man to be tainted with it.

He was covered in filth and Lancelot scraped it off, flaked away long trails of it with his nails. With his teeth, once Arthur had taken his hunger to the long, beautiful line of Lancelot’s throat. They scored Arthur’s jaw, neck, lips and he felt the nightmare of the past two days fall from him. His hands were rough as he clawed away the barriers between them and neither of them cared. Lancelot arched into it, whatever Arthur did, and that made salt sting Arthur’s eyes that Lancelot licked away, that Lancelot shared with Arthur’s mouth.

They stumbled backwards because Arthur was himself again and so he wouldn’t draw needless blood, and because Lancelot would not let him go to dip his fingers in the lamp. It broke and oozed clear thick oil on the floor while Arthur pressed into Lancelot. Fingertips stabbed into his arms and he stopped, knees weak with the sweet hot clench of the other man’s body and tongue desperately lapping at the pure sweat gathering in the hollows of Lancelot’s neck. He couldn’t seem to lift his mouth from the other man’s throat and face, ravaging from behind the ear where it made Lancelot whimper down along scratching stubble and up again to feel Lancelot’s lips part for him.

Lancelot pulled and Arthur shoved. He wanted to be gentler, to take his time, but it had been two days and that was long enough for him to forget how. So he wasn’t. He clamped one hand on Lancelot’s shoulder and he used the other to squeeze and work Lancelot’s prick till he was swallowing gasps from Lancelot’s mouth, and he fucked the man so the door hinges rattled. He fucked till his bones rattled, till he was slamming his mouth against Lancelot’s so hard he thought he felt a tooth chip, till the other man was first clawing and trying to climb up Arthur with nails and knees, and then limp and trapped between Arthur and the door. And then he kept fucking till the giving was too much and he was too full of all that he’d received. He brimmed, overflowed and it finally, finally drowned out the sound of his thoughts.

“They pinned up your cloak with corpses. I almost thought you were dead.” Desperation and fear made Lancelot’s voice shake. He was panting and his whole body was trembling with exhaustion, but somehow he found the strength to pull them closer.

Arthur dragged up his hand and threaded it into Lancelot’s hair. “I heard them say they’d almost gotten inside.”

The other man turned his head to nuzzle the inside of Arthur’s wrist, uncaring of the crusted dirt and gore there. “Urien’s girl turned traitor. Killed him, almost got the gate open before anyone noticed. Gawain killed her.”

“The villagers…?” Everything could have gone so badly—everything had gone badly, and had only avoided catastrophe by a margin so thin it made Arthur’s breath catch. He buried his face in the join of Lancelot’s neck and shoulder and filled his nose with the other man’s scent.

“Settled. Well enough, anyway.” A trace of Lancelot’s usual dark flippancy found its way into his voice. So did a tiny bit of hysteria; they were discussing the past few days so simply, as if mere words could convey everything that had happened.

But they did, in a way. Because a single word from Lancelot told Arthur so much, and he knew that the other man was reading his brief comments just as well.

Lancelot’s grip tightened a fraction more. He strove to laugh lightly and instead sounded frayed and hollow. “I was acting like you were dead. Like I had the fucking command.”

“You don’t,” Arthur murmured, rubbing his cheek against Lancelot’s. And he wouldn’t wish it on Lancelot, either.

But they each had responsibilities outside this knot of their bodies and they had to see to them. Galahad had been shot—it hadn’t looked fatal, but if the past two days had been as punishing on Gawain as they’d obviously had on Lancelot, then a mere scratch could have tipped things. And Tristan had spent the time with serious injuries and barely any medical treatment, and then there was the matter of defeating the Woads.

At that thought, Arthur’s former icy rage whispered to him. He took its suggestion, but forced away its mood.

They stayed twined about each other a moment longer before breaking apart. Lancelot lifted his hand, paused and then ducked his head to hide a smile tinged with both irony and sadness. “You know, I should be used to this. Every time we walk on a battlefield, it’s the same.”

It wasn’t, but Arthur’s tongue was suddenly too thick and clumsy for him to say so. Instead he raised his hand to touch Lancelot’s, then dropped it and began to see to his clothing.

“No…it’s not,” Lancelot said, slowly redressing himself. “The battlefield’s harder, but then I don’t have the time to sit and stew in it.”

“I’m—”

But Lancelot clapped his hand over Arthur’s mouth. Then he leaned in, voice and eye fierce. “Do _not_ apologize for that. Just say it’ll never be me waiting again.”

He was out the door before he could’ve heard Arthur’s answer. If Arthur had been able to offer one.

* * *

The sound of fluttering wings made Tristan open his eyes. He stared up at the ceiling, then tilted his head to look at the head of the bed.

Geraint had Tristan’s hawk on his arm and was cooing at it, trying to soothe it into quietly shifting its perch. He wasn’t completely successful, but he did manage to avoid having a chunk snapped out of his ear. “The surgeon can’t understand why you haven’t passed out yet. He’s new; he hasn’t seen very many of us.”

“He knows his business well enough.” Having his leg reset yet again had been far from a pleasant experience, but nevertheless Tristan was relieved to finally have someone properly see to it. Galahad’s tries hadn’t been all that bad, but Tristan depended on his mobility and so he wanted better than ‘not bad.’

His side had only needed a few extra stitches where he’d pulled out the first ones and a good wash, so he actually hadn’t been that long at the surgeon’s. A good thing, both because he disliked their callous way of manhandling the wounded and because Galahad needed them more.

That thought turned Tristan about to look at Geraint. “Any word about Galahad?”

“He’ll live. Be in a sling for a month or so, but after that, all he’ll have is a scar.” Geraint finished easing back from the hawk, who was now dipping over to cry inquiries at Tristan, and took a seat beside the cot.

When the fort had first been built, this room probably had formed part of an officer’s quarters. Later a connecting door had been walled up and a new one carved to the hallway to create a small, isolated room that apparently served as a spare storeroom. It was possible to go from it to the outside without having to pass anyone else’s room, which was why Tristan had chosen it.

Now, however, he wished he’d picked one from which he could hear what was going on. He wanted to know whether Arthur had lost that lethal, glittering hardness in his eyes, whether Gawain had gone mad after all—a joke at the time, but now Tristan regretted it—and whether Geraint was, as he generally did, understating the situation. Creeping about the back of his mind was a comment that his room was rather like the small cave in which he’d spent last night, and that familiarity was not an enjoyable feeling.

Tristan reached up and stroked his fingers down the back of his hawk, bringing that old memory to the forefront. But the effort drained what little energy he still had left and so he laid back down.

“Your leg should heal without trouble, too.” The other man clasped his hands around his wrists, rubbing them and tugging at the bracelet of hair that circled one. He seemed to be waiting for an answer, but since he hadn’t asked anything, Tristan didn’t provide one.

Some deep irritation flashed over Geraint’s face and then retreated to the harsh lines around his eyes and mouth. He started to say something, stopped himself and twisted in the chair to stare at the far wall.

Satisfied that all was well, the hawk ruffled her wing-feathers in place and dozed off.

“Your officer nearly went out of his mind,” Geraint abruptly said.

It took a moment for Tristan to realize Geraint was referring to Gawain, because that was technically how it was. But in practice Gawain—and the others up to Arthur, for that matter—had always treated him as if he stood on equal footing with them. They had never formally discussed the arrangement, which was quite different from how Tristan had worked under his previous officer, but then, there’d never been any need to.

“It’s a good thing no one here didn’t already know.” Now Geraint’s tone was faintly malicious. But when Tristan raised an eyebrow at him, Geraint looked away and seemed almost ashamed. He stopped fiddling with his lover’s token and instead pressed his fingers to the sides of his nose, then dropped them to his lap as if they were made of lead. “You should have been here. Lancelot was nearly as bad, and Urien was hiding in his woman’s breasts right up till she killed him.”

Brangaine. So she’d been the failed spy the Woads had mentioned…but that was a minor detail that Tristan could track down later. Currently the more important issue was the one barbing Geraint’s tongue. “How was I supposed to be here?”

“With us. Damn it, it should have been you!” Geraint slammed his fists down on his knees and glared at Tristan hot enough to singe the air. But only for a moment, because then he almost seemed to cave in on himself. “My men should be _your_ men.”

Tristan almost threw himself up before he remembered the aches and the pain, and when he did sit up, he did so hurriedly enough to make his side protest and his hawk open a curious eye. It wasn’t her fight, so he put out a hand and petted her back to sleep before turning his attention to Geraint. “But they aren’t. They’re yours, and I won’t take them.”

He’d been avoiding his old troop and it seemed that Geraint had noticed and taken it the wrong way. The reason wasn’t hate or snobbery—Gawain’s higher status hadn’t been a factor at all in Tristan’s decision to transfer—but again, the inability to take the familiarity. If Tristan was going to go on and find a new way through life, he could not stay with men who had known him with Dinidan and whom he’d known with Dinidan. Looking at them was like feeling Galahad’s mouth moving against the back of his neck and knowing that he could close his eyes…and it would only hurt all the more when he opened them to banish the dream.

“They should be—” Geraint stubbornly continued.

“They shouldn’t. Not now. I can’t lead them. I can’t…” The explanation was in Tristan’s head, but it would not go to his tongue. He spread out his hands and tried to will his reasons into view between them, laying them out on the mattress. “I can’t ride with you anymore.”

Snarling, Geraint kicked out of his seat and stalked about the room. He finally stopped by the bricked-up door and put his hands on the lintel stone, which jutted out from the rest of the wall. His nails grated as he gripped it, head bent and back tense. “Is Gawain that much better for you? Better than your tribesmen? Better than your memory, perhaps?”

Wood creaked. When Tristan looked down, he saw that his hand had unconsciously wrapped about the bedframe and was now doing its best to warp it. It made him laugh, for he was taking offense at a comment that completely missed the truth. For that matter, it also missed the more accurate insult, because in the end, it hadn’t been only Gawain.

“No, he’s better because he _isn’t_ a memory. At least, not one that goes that far back.” That was the only explanation Tristan knew he could give, so he hoped that Geraint would understand. He respected the man and he had spent years fighting with him, and he did sympathize with Geraint. While in any other unit they might have a milk-and-honey life, in the knights officers took the brunt of it.

Geraint was still for the space of two long, strained breaths. Then he pushed back and looked at Tristan, eyes narrowed. There was knowledge in those slits—unwelcome comprehension, but comprehension nonetheless—and after a moment, Geraint acknowledged that with a curt nod.

“Then I wish you well,” Geraint said. He was wheeling about before he’d even finished talking and so his last two words were whipped to razor edges.

“And I wish you so.” By the time Tristan said it, Geraint was halfway out of the door. The other man didn’t acknowledge it, but it was obvious that he’d heard and that it hadn’t improved his mood any. It hadn’t been meant to do that so much as to acknowledge a genuine feeling of Tristan’s, but nevertheless Tristan wished for a moment that he could have offered more than a feeling.

* * *

Dagonet had the night watch once more, but he didn’t mind. The night was no longer ambiguous, but merely another haunt of the Woads, who would soon be smoked out, and the knights were no longer a huddled group of uncertain, fearful men but a weapon with a mind behind it.

“Almost pretty,” Bors grunted. He jerked his chin at the stars and grinned at some recollection, which glow he wasn’t slow to share with Dagonet. “One night m’girls were asking me how many stars were up there. I said I didn’t know, nobody knew, and then they said well, then no one’ll miss a few if we take ‘em. That’s how you know you brought them up proper.”

“They’ll have men laying them at their feet in their time.” Phantom little hands curiously poked at the tattoos on Dagonet’s head as he smiled. But then the memory went away and he remembered a different set of hands: nearly as large as a man’s, rough as an iron file, and written with the story of a hard, vivid life. He felt his smile shrink a little, but it didn’t disappear.

Bors barked a laugh and leaned against the wall. Still chuckling, he pulled down his trousers, then turned to take a piss. Someone called over that he’d better not be watering the road, and he yelled back that he was watering where he damn pleased because didn’t they know flowers sprung up where he pissed? He was a veritable miracle-worker, he was.

He was an uncouth, loud, irrepressible presence in Dagonet’s life and Dagonet was glad for it. What Bors did was add back the color, least anyone forget that the world wasn’t a black and gray shadow that one could only survive.

“Dag, my friend, you need to get yourself a wife. What happened to Maria? Or that blonde that Vanora was positive was sweet on you—what’s her name…”

“Aurelia.” She had been kind to Dagonet, but apparently he’d bored her and they had gradually drifted apart. The last he’d seen of her, she had been big with Bedivere’s child and she had glowed like a candle-flame cupped about with a hand. “I don’t have enough for rooms outside of the barracks. Where would I put her?”

Bors nodded, chewing on his nail. He ripped off a bit and spat it over the side. “True enough. But you could use somebody. Can’t keep borrowing my kids—not that I mind, but you should be having some of your own. They’re worth all the trouble, really.”

“I’d believe that.” As rascal as they were, Bors’ children were at heart as generous and loving as he was. If Dagonet could be sure to have a family like Bors’, or at least one that wasn’t wrecked by the tension that permeated the whole land…

Something touched his foot. He looked at Bors, but the other man was leaning over the wall and staring at something that’d caught his eye. Then Dagonet looked down and saw Branwen.

She looked more gaunt and worn than she had before, but her eyes were as bright as the stars above them. As soon as she saw him staring at her, she put a finger to her lips and glared. Then she quickly shoved a small wrapped bundle against his foot and slipped out of sight.

Bors was still watching the horizon, mumbling to himself. Normally Dagonet disliked keeping secrets, and especially from the other man, but this time he was glad for Bors’ distraction. He didn’t particularly want to explain Branwen, considering its delicacy.

A casual, quick stoop and her gift was safely tucked away. It was a farewell, he knew. He would’ve liked to return the favor and leave something in return, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want any traces to remain on her side. He’d respect that.

Dagonet would have stepped into a corner and taken a peek, but just then Bors raised a wild whoop. He lunged back, grabbed Dagonet, and yanked him up to shake him at tiny specks of light.

Torches. In marching order. The Woads didn’t march.

“Magnus Maximus. Well, well, we’ve got reinforcements,” said one knight. He trotted backward, picking up speed as he went, and then twisted about just in time to avoid tumbling down the stairs. Those he flew down as he raced to inform their commander.

“Still have to do a bit of fighting, I’d wager, but it’ll be on the field and on our terms.” Bors laid a hand on Dagonet’s shoulder and squeezed hard. He looked unusually sober. “You remember what we shook on, right? I fall and—”

Dagonet nodded, though he prayed that that would never come to pass. A family come by that way was no family at all, but a living scar. He’d seen it with Bran and Branwen, and he hoped never to see it amongst his friends.

He lifted his hand to Bors’ elbow and squeezed back, silently promising anyway. It was the least he could do; the most he could do was still waiting in the future.

* * *

Galahad woke up in the dark. For a moment, he thought he was back in the cave; the air was stale and there was a body slumping hard against him. “Tristan?”

The body stirred and then Galahad knew damn well who it was. He flushed and hid his face in the pillow.

“What?” Gawain murmured. Then he was fully awake and pressing his cheek against Galahad’s shoulder with a vengeance. His hand skittered over Galahad’s back, touching here and there and never settling till Galahad pushed himself up on his elbows—fucking shoulder didn’t like that—and pinned it to the bed. “Galahad.”

“That’d be my name.” Galahad’s voice was shaking. He held onto Gawain’s hand till he thought it’d stopped, and then he held onto Gawain’s hand just because now he could. As dark as it was, no one could see them…and anyway, he didn’t think they were in the barracks or the infirmary. Which was rightly where they should’ve been, but if Gawain had managed to wangle a private room, Galahad wasn’t going to protest.

After a moment, Gawain bumped his nose into Galahad’s cheek. He didn’t curse the dark or make any embarrassed noises, but instead kept moving until he found Galahad’s mouth. Then he kissed Galahad, which was enough to keep them busy for a while.

Eventually Galahad’s shoulder really started to hurt and he had to pull away. “Ow. What the fuck was that?”

“An arrow.” Gawain’s hand slid out from under Galahad’s and skimmed over his back, then curved about Galahad’s side. A little judicious tugging and lifting saw Galahad more comfortably situated on Gawain’s chest.

“Figures. I get through the whole damn thing with just scratches and then I have to get an arrow at the last moment.” No, the shaking undertone wasn’t gone from Galahad’s voice, and that greatly annoyed him because he sounded like he was panicking. Which was ridiculous, because what did he have to panic over now? Between the Woads and the frightening thing behind Arthur’s eyes that had saved him and…Tristan. “Where’s Tristan? He’d better not be dead, considering how much effort I put into keeping him alive. Oh, and you’d better appreciate that, since it was for your…Gawain? Gawain?”

It took a little bit for Gawain to stop making those worrying choked laughs. He ran a hand through Galahad’s hair and pulled him up to peck him on the forehead. “This is what I was missing?” he snorted. But his amusement was too full of pain to really be funny.

Galahad shook Gawain’s hand out of his hair, then rested his head beneath Gawain’s chin. It was panic and fear and grief and sudden reprieve, and it was even more complicated than that, but at the moment he didn’t want it to be. He was tired. His shoulder wanted to complain. He had Gawain and he wasn’t in a cave and everything was about as fine as it ever got. So he was damn well going to enjoy it while he could.

“Tristan’s fine,” Gawain eventually said. His fingers gently stroked over the bandages. “I’m impressed—you two seem to have gotten along better than I thought.”

“’m not completely stupid. You didn’t have to worry so much about that,” Galahad retorted.

The next breath Gawain took was a little delayed. “I didn’t worry about that at all.” His voice was low and suddenly jagged, and his hand shivered against Galahad’s neck. “I don’t think I even remembered about Tristan most of the time. I…the Woads…I kept thinking you were dead.”

It hurt to listen to him, and Galahad wished he could make it stop, but what was shaking Gawain now was a memory and those couldn’t be erased. So Galahad did what he could with his lips and his hands and the rest of his body. Made his arrow wound whine, but he could ignore that for a little bit.

“It’s funny. We risk the same thing whenever we go out to battle, but I’m used to that. This was worse.” Gawain pressed his face into Galahad’s hair and breathed, long and deep. When he lifted his head, he seemed to have calmed down a bit.

“Probably because when we’re on a battlefield, all we have to worry about is the next bastard with a sword. You’re either alive or you’re dead. But…I was crammed into this cave and I was thinking you were dead, you were alive, you were captured…and that was when Tristan wasn’t having a fit.” Galahad could hear the disbelief rolling off of Gawain and poked the other man. “Well, not a fit, but whatever goes on in his mind is very, very weird.”

That made Gawain laugh, but it also made him sound uncertain about it. He was already going back to normal, worrying about Tristan who did have odd spots but who was more composed than nearly anyone else, thinking about his responsibilities. Usually Galahad would be annoyed, but currently he was relieved. Where they’d been for the past two days had been a place no one should ever have to go. It hadn’t seemed too bad while Galahad had been in it, aside from the few moments of panic, but now that he was out…waiting till eternity before going in again wouldn’t be too long.

“Gawain! Gawain!” Someone pounded on the door till the hinges rattled. “Magnus Maximus’ forces are here!”

“Shit.” Gawain’s grip on Galahad tightened. Then the other man was rolling out of bed onto his feet. He started to reach for his sword, which he’d set on a nearby chair, but then he noticed Galahad and he stopped. “What are you doing? That’s your sword-arm—”

Galahad glowered even though he knew Gawain couldn’t see it. At the least, Gawain should be able to feel it. “I _know_. I’ll—”

“You can’t watch from the walls; we’ll need all that space for the archers.” Hovering, Gawain leaned towards Galahad, leaned towards his sword. He started to say something else, but apparently remembered the conversation they’d just had and stopped himself.

The inside of Galahad’s mouth tasted bitter. But now, so soon after they’d come back together, was not the time to argue. He hated it, and he was definitely going to complain later—when Gawain could take it. “Then I’ll go irritate Tristan. I’m not going to stay and wait by myself.”

“What, you like him now?” Gawain sounded incredibly relieved beneath his surprise.

“Not really,” Galahad muttered. Liking was something one did with…beer, or a nice pair of boots. It had nothing to do with the convoluted, patchwork ties that circumstances wove among them.

And Gawain was still hesitating. He looked stupid like that. For that matter, Galahad was frozen half-up and he probably looked stupid like that, and if he kept thinking, then he wasn’t going to be able to focus. So he reached out and shoved Gawain. “You’ll need your sword, you know. If you don’t want to get killed.”

“Brat.” But the hard, fast last kiss Gawain gave Galahad belied the sharpness of the insult.

* * *

“Knights! Ride hard, ride well, and guard the backs of your comrades!”

It was all Arthur had time to say, for the battle had already been joined outside of the fort. Magnus Maximus had driven through the woods to push the Woads out onto the field where they’d be easy killing for horsemen. And after the events of the last few days, all the knights were eager for blood.

Well, almost all. Honestly, Lancelot would have been happy to have told the Woads to go fuck their spears for a week or so. Then he could’ve spent more time finding out what had happened to Arthur in the woods. More time reveling in the fact that Arthur was, in fact, not dead. But they never had time for that anyway. He should be used to it.

He wasn’t. Besides, this had been as bad as the campaign that had left Arthur’s back striped with scars. Arthur could be castigating of himself, or overly demanding, but he’d never looked…frightened of himself. Yet he had.

It didn’t make sense; being afraid of oneself meant surpassing expectations, but one of Arthur’s defining characteristics was how he always found himself lacking.

And it didn’t particularly matter whether or not it was logical. What did was that it was a problem for Arthur, and that it was a serious enough one to carry over into making Arthur afraid to touch Lancelot. Which Lancelot was not about to stand for. As if there weren’t already more than enough things trying to divide them.

That wasn’t going to happen, Lancelot vowed.

The gates opened as soon as Arthur had wheeled to put his horse alongside Lancelot’s. Before them lay a verdant field being trampled and bloodied. Before them lay those responsible for Arthur’s change in mood.

Now the anger rose, and now Lancelot felt the eagerness for violence rise with it. He would lose that euphoria soon enough in the exhausting, terrifying, confusing haze of fighting, but for now he welcomed it.

Arthur unsheathed Excalibur and pointed it at the sky. He kicked his heels into his horse’s sides a bare beat before Lancelot did, and then they were off across the field. 

The speed built up behind Lancelot, explosions coiling from the thundering of his horse’s galloping up through his thighs into his body. It would have rattled his teeth, except the wind was slapping him in the face and the opposing pressures canceled each other out. He hefted his lance and picked out a Woad. Had his target killed a moment before they hit the struggling armies and twitched the tip over, tapped his left foot against his horse so it would shift trajectory.

The lance-tip took the man squarely between the shoulderblades. Though Lancelot had braced himself for it, the jolt still slammed him backwards. His knees jerked inwards and he shoved the lance from him, then yanked out a sword barely in time to parry a pike-point.

Taking his knee-clamp as a signal to swerve, his charger went pell-mell into a mob of Woads and Romans, all pressed together too close to fight with anything but hands and feet. Lancelot slashed and slashed, doing his best not to hit the legionaries. There was no skill here; only the draining drudgery of moving his arm up and down and the erratic rhythm of time, which slowed and sped up in accordance to no sensible pattern.

He broke through and saw a graceful arc of blood moving so sluggishly he could see the way the light rippled on it. Then a Woad came shrieking at him and everything was a jumble of his other sword parrying and stabbing behind to get the man he knew was coming up there and then cutting something vital. The blood splashed Lancelot, bringing him to his senses. He had a hard time not laughing at that.

Instead he shook the gore off his swords and rode towards the next knot of fighting. Arthur was there, length of Excalibur twisting and darting as he worked his way through the mess. By the time Lancelot reached it, Romans and Woads were unraveling into victorious and dead fragments.

So Lancelot rode past it and stuck his sword in the eye of a woman hefting a spear at Arthur’s back. The tip snagged and he ended up dragging her for a few yards before her weight finally pulled her corpse off. “Arthur?”

“Knights! Draw back and re-form!” Arthur shouted. Across the field, Gawain’s head jerked up and he started signaling; Geraint already had his men half-out.

So they were going to keep cannonading into the flanks and leave the head-on work to the infantry. Well, that suited Lancelot. It played to the cavalry’s strengths and it put most of the effort on the legionaries, who were fresher and far more numerous.

He banged his knee against his stallion till it stopped trampling Woads and followed the rest of the knights back out of the lines. The slash of the wind brought a few minor cuts to Lancelot’s attention, but he soon forgot about them because he was readying himself for the next charge.

Then Arthur whirled up beside him, as had happened a thousand times before. The other man’s mouth was snarling around his panting and in his eyes was that dizzy combination of ferocity and intelligence that always made Lancelot, though he couldn’t afford it, look twice.

Arthur looked at home. He looked at home here, blood and dirt clotting the side of his face and dripping off his sword, in a way he never did when relaxing. Because when at rest, Arthur was still thinking a thousand things and they kept him from being at peace, and when at war, he was thinking a thousand things and he could let them lash out.

Suddenly Lancelot understood how Arthur could frighten himself. It made Lancelot’s gut turn cold.

Then they were charging and his blood was running hot and high again, his swords seeking flesh. But he’d remember the lesson for later. He’d remember it for when he wondered what the reward was for all his troubles, and for when he wondered whether the balance was equal. For when he wondered what he was truly fighting against, and for.

* * *

“They’re shouting on the walls,” Galahad said. He slouched in the chair and drummed his fingers along the side of its seat. It was incredibly annoying, and when he saw how Tristan was grimacing at it, he drummed louder.

“It’s a victory. If it were a loss—”

Galahad flipped up his hand in a rude gesture before returning to his incessant tapping. “—they wouldn’t still be yelling. I know.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Tristan asked, irked enough to show it. He carefully judged the timing, then snatched out at Galahad’s hand and made it stop. Above him, his hawk made a relieved sound and slowly smoothed her feathers down from an agitated ruffle.

“What, do you want me to leave? It can’t be healthy to spend so much time hiding from other people.” Though Galahad’s words were flippant, his eyes were not. His eyes were also telling Tristan that the man was not really thinking about Tristan’s state of well-being so much as about Gawain on the field. He jerked his hand free of Tristan’s hold and absently began chewing on a knuckle.

It was amusing, in a very twisted way, that Galahad managed to touch more deeply when he wasn’t thinking about what he was saying than when most other men could when they were calculating the weight of every word. And it also stung a little.

Tristan must have been silent for too long because Galahad stopped fidgeting to look at him. Then the other man shrugged and sighed. “Well, I did spend all that time carrying you around. Be a little annoying if you went off and got yourself killed now.”

“So you’re not still doing this because Gawain said to?” Morbid curiosity made Tristan pick at the stinging.

Galahad rolled his eyes. “Tristan. People like company. This is _normal_ , if you’ve never seen it before.” His grin had a mocking edge to it. “Maybe you’re just fun to annoy. Gawain’s no good anymore—he’s too used to me and he laughs it off.”

The muffled shouts grew louder, and somewhere a door slammed open. The noise instantly slewed Galahad around, and a moment later he was running out of the room to go find Gawain. All the commotion caused Tristan’s hawk to flap her wings and vociferously protest.

He clucked at her and smiled. “Shh. We’ll let that one go. Till my leg is healed, anyway.”

* * *

The Woads were utterly destroyed. A few of them managed to escape into the woods, but the majority fell on the field, which was now patched with rusty brown. Surprisingly, thankfully, there were no immediate fatalities among the knights. One of Geraint’s men had had the better part of his right arm taken off, but the surgeons said he was likely to survive the amputation. He’d never fight again, but they always needed men to staff the various administrative posts in the garrison. The Sarmatians preferred to interact with as few Romans as possible, and the Romans tended to cheat the Sarmatians whenever possible.

After hearing a brief summary of the events from Arthur, Magnus Maximus readily agreed to let his men take over cleaning up the battlefield. So Arthur sent his knights back inside, except for Lancelot who wouldn’t have gone anyway, and stayed himself only to wrap up matters. “Thank you for coming.”

“My pleasure. It’ll make a nice report, rescuing fellow soldiers.” The other man arched an eyebrow at Arthur.

He was asking if Arthur was going to challenge that version of the story. While it wasn’t completely truthful or fair, it was also the price that had to be paid. The safety of Arthur’s men overruled his reputation or his pride. “I suppose,” he said, nodding his head.

Behind him, Lancelot let out a soft snort. But when Arthur looked over, Lancelot was studiously seeing to his and Arthur’s horses.

“Woads this far back…” Maximus shook his head and whistled. Business settled, he became human and cast Arthur a sympathetic look. “Bad luck, or turning tides?”

“The former now, I think. They’ve lost the river campaign and this one, and with it two sizable armies. They won’t be able to afford anything but sure fights for a while.” Arthur scanned the field again. So many dead…he’d carried out his promise. He’d seen the Woads crushed here and any sense of vengeance he had was more than satisfied.

Nausea was a lurking shadow.

The point of fighting was to forge peace, not to shatter peoples. At least, it had been, but the more Arthur fought, the more he feared that that wasn’t possible. But it had to be. If it didn’t, then all of his life had been wasted.

He would have to watch himself more carefully from now on, and make sure he never fell so far into the fighting again. If he was going to make peace, then he was going to have to know how to live in it as well. And that had to be the case, no matter what pressures he had on him.

“Paullus got his orders,” Maximus said. He ruffled his sweaty hair off his forehead and left a brown streak behind. “Asia Minor. I’m going with him, so after this year I’ll be out of this.”

Arthur smiled. He could feel how thin his sincerity was, though it was genuine. “Congratulations.”

Maximus belatedly realized what he’d implied and flushed. Then, being a pragmatic man, he shrugged it off. After all, only a few more months and he’d no longer have to worry about being polite to Arthur. “Thanks for that. I swear, this land makes you go mad. This isn’t even war; it’s just grinding each other into the mud and waiting for someone to suffocate.”

They spent a few more minutes discussing the logistics of switching out the knights for the regular fort staff—which was normally a token force, but it’d have to be temporarily increased—before Maximus went off to oversee his men.

“Good thing we’re all experts at holding our breath now, isn’t it?” Lancelot walked up and handed Arthur the reins to his horse. His eyes flicked up and down Arthur, checking for wounds. “You all right?”

It was what Lancelot usually asked after a battle, but for some reason, it felt as if he were asking about more this time. His gaze was boring holes in Arthur’s face, and his hand twitched out as if to touch Arthur on the shoulder.

“Now…yes.” Arthur gave the field a last glance before he mounted up. “Lancelot, when you said you didn’t care what I was—”

“I haven’t changed my mind.” The look Lancelot shot Arthur as he pulled himself into the saddle was unequivocal. “Though you make it damned hard,” he muttered.

And he made it easy for Arthur, so easy…that was the difficult part. He wanted to do anything to keep what he and Lancelot had, but therein lay the slide into something dark and brutal.

“Back to the usual campaigning…Arthur?”

“I hope you never regret that.” Arthur reached over and grabbed Lancelot’s arm, holding it a fraction longer than he strictly had to. Then he picked up the pace. 

After a moment, he heard the other man scrambling to catch up; there was a blur past Arthur as Lancelot shot ahead. Then he spun around to face Arthur and nearly snarled the words. “Don’t regret it for me, then.”

He fell back, but only enough so they were abreast of each other. And they entered the fort like that, as Arthur hoped they’d do with everything.

* * *

“I’ve never been so glad to see a place behind me.” Galahad snuggled down on the furs Gawain had piled on the floor of the wagon. It wasn’t the best padding possible against the jolts of the road, but from what Gawain could tell, the other man liked it well enough.

Tristan was sitting across from him, broken leg straight out and other leg bent so his hawk could perch on the knee. “You’re saying goodbye to the only break we’re likely to get till winter.”

“Don’t tell me you’re objecting.” Not bothering to look at Tristan, Galahad hung over the back of the wagon and tossed an apple to Gawain. Then he laid back down so only the top of his head was visible above the backboard. Wet crunching sounds were soon followed by apple seeds and a core dropping over the side.

Gawain’s horse whinnied in disappointment. He patted its neck and told it there would be apples waiting once they’d gotten settled in for the night, but there wasn’t time now. “Galahad? I’m going—if you need anything, you should mention it now.” 

“I’m fine. Have fun outyelling Lancelot.” Galahad flashed a grin. For a man who’d been shot in the shoulder, he was in remarkably good spirits. Then again, he also got to ride in the wagon and sit out the thousand exasperating moments that made up a routine march.

“Tristan?” Gawain called.

Shaking his head, Tristan let his hawk fly out the front of the wagon. “I’ll try not to kill him.”

“The effort’s very much appreciated.” Gawain ignored Galahad’s outraged exclamation and turned his horse to face the fort, checking for any forgotten details.

On the walls was a thin figure with long brown hair. Frowning, he followed the line of Branwen’s gaze to…Dagonet, who was raising a hand. He looked back at the wall just in time to see Branwen disappearing behind it.

She didn’t come out of the gate, so Gawain assumed that whatever it had been, it hadn’t lasted. Oddly enough, Dagonet seemed untroubled by that. Either that or he was very good at hiding his disappointment, but dissembling didn’t seem to be in his nature, so Gawain doubted that.

“Is everything ready?” Arthur asked, riding up. A pace behind him was Lancelot, who was only slower because he was twisted about to tongue-lash a clumsy porter.

“Far as I can see.” As ready as they could be, considering that anything beyond the next hill-top was fair game.

“Then move out.” Arthur rode on, occasionally stopping to converse with a knight or a legionary—Maximus’ men were helping to escort the wagon train—or to wait for Lancelot, whose temper seemed unaffected by the beautiful day.

They were going back into the war, but better that than a false peace, Gawain thought. At least then they’d already learned who they were and what they were capable of under those conditions. When he rested, he wanted to know that he was going to rest, and that he wasn’t going to be called upon when he least expected it.

“Move out!” he shouted. The order echoed down the line, and slowly they began to return.


	6. Trust

Peeling bandages off a half-healed wound hurt. And for some reason, Gawain’s bright idea for dealing with that was to poke Galahad. “Stop moving. You’re only making it worse.”

“But—ow!—the way you’re—ow! Hey!—fussing with it is-- _ow_.” Galahad dug his fingers into his knees and gritted his teeth. “I’m beginning to think you’re dragging this out.”

“Because you’re an idiot and you _are_ moving too much.” Tristan wasn’t even watching them, so Galahad had no idea how the man could tell. He was sitting on Gawain’s bed, busy stirring up some stinking salve in a legionary helmet he just happened to have.

Okay, it did make Galahad feel a little better to know that out there, some infantryman was getting punished for losing an essential piece of his kit. But it didn’t make him any more confident in that shit Tristan wanted to use on him.

Which of course was why Galahad hadn’t even twitched when Gawain had dabbed on the first bits. “It smells. I’ll have to hide around the manure piles to keep anyone from noticing.”

“Seems like your kind of company anyway,” Tristan muttered.

Short, reproachful silence. It was nice how Gawain could do that.

“After we get you done, you can help me pull the stitches out of Tristan’s side. You did half of them anyway…and you really need to learn how to sew straight.” Gawain finished with the salve that he’d scooped up and leaned back so Galahad thought he was done. But then a hand pulled Galahad back by his other shoulder, and more of the reeking stuff was slathered on.

To be truthful, it was cool and soothing. But it wasn’t as if Galahad was going to admit that. “The needle goes in straight. I don’t know what the thread does.”

A sigh came from behind him, and beside him was an amused snort.

“Never mind.” It sounded as if Gawain was starting to have a headache. “We’ll just never let you near a cut on the face.”

* * *

The spoon and knife were rough-made things, sturdy and simple without any embellishment. They’d been well-used by someone before Dagonet so he could feel faint finger furrows in the handle, and wrapping them together was a short braid of dark brown hair. He reached into his jerkin and pulled up the other hairs he’d taken. After untying the braid, he carefully folded the hairs into it and redid it. Then he slipped it into his saddlebag.

When he arrived at Vanora’s, he brought the spoon and knife with him as well as his old set. She greeted him with a smacking kiss on the cheek and asked him to set the table; while he did that, he quietly slipped his old pair into the mix of her silverware so one less child would have to share.

“Dag!” Something small and well-padded rammed into his calves.

He turned around and swooped the little girl from the floor in one smooth motion, smiling. She laughed and reached for his head, so he pulled her to him and let her explore.

* * *

Boots thudded across the ground and stopped by Arthur. “You’re spending more and more time here.”

“I’m burying more knights.” Arthur murmured a last prayer for Urien before he stood up and brushed off his knees. Beside him, Lancelot looked as if he wanted to comment more and comment sharply, but Arthur glanced at him and Lancelot let it go.

Till they were on the way back into the garrison. Then the words cracked from his tongue like a whip in the air. “You realize they won’t give a damn how much you pray for them? They never believed in your God—they won’t now because they’re dead and they’re not _here_. The only reason you do it is for yourself.”

“True enough.”

Lancelot opened his mouth, but all he let out was a frustrated exhale. They continued on for several yards before he spoke again, low and tired. “There is always another battle, Arthur. But for once, can you stop watching for it and pay attention to what happens in between?”

“If I stopped watching, and it suddenly jumped to now, then who would give warning?” It wasn’t that Arthur wanted to do it; on the contrary, he desired rest as much as anyone else. But he wanted to make certain that it came to those who deserved it, and that meant taking on the responsibilities that no one else wanted.

He wanted to be sure that they’d never be caught off-guard again.

“I would. I already do—I watch the battles in your eyes and they never stop coming.” When Lancelot laid his fingers on Arthur’s arm, the touch was light as a snowflake landing, but it was more than enough to bring them to a halt. He moved to stand in front of Arthur, gaze earnest and desperate. And he was never either.

Arthur cupped Lancelot’s face in his hands and pressed their cheeks together. “I never would have wished that on you.”

“It’s not a matter of _wishing_. Just…stop. Stop.” Fingertips grazed Arthur’s temple, slid to the corner of his mouth and rested there.

They breathed. After a moment, Arthur leaned back to let Lancelot see into his eyes.

“There. That wasn’t hard, was it?” The other man tried to smile and only managed half of it. He lifted his hands to Arthur’s and held them for the space of a heartbeat before pulling them down and stepping back. “But I can’t do that every time.”

“I know.” Better than the verses in the Bible.

Lancelot stood watching him for another second. Then he quietly turned to let Arthur go on and fell in by Arthur’s side. They walked the rest of the way in silence, and Arthur folded away every moment of it for safekeeping.


End file.
